60 
BING-NEOEED OB BENGAL PABBAEEET. 
first pair began to nest in April, and deposited three eggs 
in a nest-box, which, however, they did not incubate. They have, on 
the other hand, been successfully bred by Herr Otto Wiegaud, as 
recorded in The Feathered World for 1873, No. 19.^’ 
The same author gives a very full description of this bird in his 
great woi'k, Bie fremdldndischen Stubenvdgel, accompanied by a portrait 
(xxv. Bird 120), as well as in his latest book, Bia sprechenden Pagyageien, 
to which we must refer our readers, as the accounts given are too 
long for transcription into these pages, and of too interesting a nature 
to be condensed. 
From what we have written it will be gathered that the Ring-necked 
Parrakeet, whether hailing from India, Africa, or the Mauritius, is, on 
the whole, a very desirable bird, and so it really is; but, at the same 
time, it must be carefully borne in mind that all these Parrakeets have 
tempers of their own, and shew them on occasion. 
If they are not spoiled, however, by being teased, they are amiable 
enough, but once they have been angered into screaming, or shrieking 
rather, there is no enduring them in the house, let them be otherwise 
ever so accomplished and desirable, for their incessant cries are enough 
to give the horrors to the unfortunate person who is doomed to listen 
to them, so that care must be taken not to irritate them, and irre- 
trievably ruin their tempers by foolish and tantalising tricks, as so 
many people, and not always children either, are in the habit of doing. 
The Hon. and Rev. F. G. Dutton's account of the Ring-necked 
or Bengal Parrakeet (Palseornis torquatus). 
This bird would be the ideal of pets, if any one could find the 
way of successfully breaking it of screaming. One of the most lovely 
of Parrakeets, its powers of talking are considerable, and its devotion 
to those to whom it takes a fancy is unbounded. 
It is hardly possible to resist buying it, when one of the numerous 
specimens that have been well-taught is offered for sale. But the cheap 
prices at which they are often offered tell a tale in themselves. I have 
again and again kept them: charming French specimens that did their 
military exercises, their drum, their “ As-tu-dejeune, Cocotte?” their little 
song: English ones that had a perfect vocabulary of sentences, and 
one and all having that greatest merit of a talking bird, that they would 
say them when you wanted them; but one and all, they have had to 
go. They would not confine themselves to our speech, but would 
indulge in their own, and there are few noises so irritating to the ear 
as the incessant scream of the Bengal Parrakeet. 
