142 PENNANT'S PABBAEEET. 
before one actually had time to realize the fact of their passage before 
one’s face. 
Clothed in a robe of the most brilliant scarletj the Pennant has a 
patch of bluish grey just under his white beak^ the front of the wings 
and the small wing coverts are of the same colour, the primaries are 
black, edged outwardly with bluish grey, and the back of the neck, 
the back, the secondaries, and large wing coverts are black, broadly 
edged with scarlet, while the long tail is very dark bluish grey, or 
rather greyish blue; the feet and legs dark slate grey, and the nails 
black; the eye is dark hazel brown, and is surrounded by a narrow 
bare line of grey, lightly dotted with black spots. 
In size the Pennant is about a third larger than the Cockatiel, but 
it is not nearly as elegantly shaped a bird as the latter, and not at 
all deserving of the epithet bestowed upon it by Kuhl and other writers, 
which, however, has now been definitively adjudged to another species 
more worthy of being so designated. 
The young resemble their parents, but their colours are duller, and 
they do not assume the adult plumage until they are at least a year 
old: with the few exceptions mentioned elsewhere, all the Parrot race 
make their nests in hollow trees, or rather in the hollow boughs of 
trees, and the Pennant follows, in this respect, the custom of the vast 
majority of his relations. Although gregarious during the winter and 
autumn, these birds separate into pairs during the breeding-season, 
which extends from September to January; during which period two 
or three broods, of from four to six young ones each, are produced, 
and the offspring remain with their parents, even while the latter are 
breeding again, until the following spring, when they set up house- 
keeping on their own account. Their nests are generally made, as 
far as scraping a hole in a rotten bough can be termed making a nest, 
in the branches of the peppermint and stringy-bark trees that are seldom 
found wanting in an Australian forest, and which particularly abound 
in the vicinity of Mount Cole, Mount Koroug, and other parts of the 
colony of Victoria. 
These birds are very fond of brackish water, and frequent such 
creeks and water-holes as are modei’ately salt, both night and morning 
in great numbers. 
Owing to the difficulty of securing a pair, these grand birds are 
not so frequently bred in our aviaries as, doubtless, they otherwise 
would be, for they are docile and hardy, and readily accommodate 
themselves to their altered circumstances, yet are always impatient of 
interference at the hands of their owners, who must, as much as possible, 
leave them to themselves if they are wished to breed. 
