62 The Marquess of Tavistock—Breeding of the Hooded Parrakeet


got some milk with raw egg beaten up in it, some brown bread, soaked

sunflower seed, and soaked wheat. Starving as they were, they were

old and nervous enough to be very awkward patients. The stronger

little hen was the least far gone and after a good deal of protesting

wriggling she began to nibble some brown bread chewed up and

moistened with egg and milk. Her sister, though very feeble and un¬

willing to touch anything solid, condescended to drink a little egg and

milk off the end of a paint-brush. But the cock, who, by reason of the

superabundance of the opposite sex in my collection I most wanted to

rear, seemed hopeless. He was too far gone to swallow and even the

tiniest drops of milk put gently into his beak only came back through

his nostrils and produced fits of gasping.


I spent about three hours in the exceedingly cosy atmosphere

alternately coaxing first one and then the other to take more nourish¬

ment. In time the heat and the wonderfully nutritious properties of

egg and milk began to take effect. Even the cock seemed a little stronger

and at length the happy moment arrived when he, too, began to nibble

feebly.


When you have a sick nestling Parrakeet to deal with it is no use

doing things by halves. I went out again at midnight, at 3 a.m., and

at 6 to continue the feeding. By midday the situation appeared to

have been saved, and even the little weakly hen made quite a good meal.

She preferred to be held on my knee but her brother and sister liked

having their food offered them in the cage off the tip of a finger very

cautiously put out to them. By this time they had passed a definite

veto on brown bread and insisted on soaked sunflower and soaked wheat

carefully chewed up.


Alas ! that afternoon the hospital temperature was allowed

to drop ten degrees and when I came to give the evening feed

the babies were looking less well and with very little warning

the smaller hen collapsed and died. I was anxious about the cock

but the raising of the temperature and another night of broken slumber

for me put him right again and next morning I got them both to take

their chewed seed freely from a dish. They are now back in the bird-room

and are beginning to fly but are still extraordinarily slow to learn to

shell seed, living mainly on soft food and during the last few days



