92 
JAVAN PAB.RAKEET. 
logSj trses eveiij will be a great boon to tbe inhabitants^ affording them 
not only snug retreats in which to deposit their eggs, and hatch and 
bring up their young, but also an infinite fund of amusement, not to 
say delight, and exercise to boot, for nearly all the Parrots are born 
whittlers , and if they haye not a handy log ^ convenient^, as an 
Irishman would say, on which to exercise their powerful mandibles, 
they will find some other and more objectionable mode of whiling 
away the time, by quarrelbng among themselves, or even turning to 
and plucking out their own feathers by the roots, until they leave 
themselves quite bare. 
As soon as the young of one brood can feed themselves, it is desirable 
to remove them to other quarters, lest they interfere with the domestic 
arrangement of their parents, and prejudice the production of another 
brood. Of course overcrowding must be carefully avoided, and if a 
separate aviary can bo given to each species, so much the better; but 
this is not absolutely, not even imperatively necessary, as most of these 
birds, the Javan Parrakeets especially, are fond of company, and thrive 
better in the society of their fellows than when kept alone by themselves. 
'The Hon. and Rev. F. G. Button's accomit of the 
Javan Parrakeet (Palaeornis Javanicus). 
This bird is ‘’‘the Whiskered Parrot”, “P. himaculatm” , of Pechstein. 
He gives it a better character for speaking than I can endorse; but 
I only kept two specimens. Those both had the same character. They 
were very tame and gentle, not so noisy as the Bengal Parrakeet, though 
still gifted with a power of making one jump every now and then. They 
were not good talkers: one never got beyond '"Pretty Polly,” nor the 
other beyond a few words of Hindustani. Perhaps if their education 
had been regularly attended to, they might have developed further 
powers of speech; as far as tameness went, they left nothing to be 
desired. 
Unlike the Bengal Parrakeet, neither of them seemed to care about 
washing. They feed, like the Bengal, on canary, hemp, and millet seed. 
I find sopped bread is a question of education with all the Palceornis 
tribe. Some like bread and milk, some like bread and water, and 
others will have nothing but plain water. It depends upon how they 
have been brought up. Perhaps the same might be said of every 
Parrot. 
