152 Rev. Kingsford Venner—Notes on my Birds


from its cage and flies round the room). She used to lay two eggs

yearly, and brooded them closely, being then very uncertain in

temper, but this ceased about five years ago. She distinctly prefers

men to women, which rather bears out the common belief as to the

parrot family’s sex-consciousness in their dealings with humans.


I now mention the other oldest inmate, a gorgeous Purple-cap

Lory, who lives up to his name of “ Lucifer ”, having on one

occasion murdered a lovely cock Plum-head, since when he has been

strictly by himself, except at the Zoo, where he resided for five years

and was provided with a mate in the shape of a Yellow-back Lory,

the only bird he would tolerate. On one occasion in his former days

with me he escaped and flew about the country for over a week,

feasting on strawberries, etc., in some fruit gardens about four

miles away, till he was lured down by a Blue-fronted Amazon belong¬

ing to the owner of the aforesaid gardens, entered an empty cage,

and was claimed by me. So you see, his career has been somewhat

adventurous. By the way, I should imagine this species is a far

easier bird to keep than the Swainson’s Lorrikeet, if I may judge

from my one and only specimen. He arrived in Sussex on a raw

November day in 1923, having come from Yorkshire in a wooden

box, no paper, and merely strips of wood over the top to keep

him in ! He has lived on bread and milk, not always sweet (when

I was away from home), in an open cage in those infernal regions

for most birds—a large greenhouse—sweltering by day, and

correspondingly cold at night, with (as I didn’t know better in

those days) frequent bites at an orange. This I now believe to be

fatal to any milk-feeding bird, the combination of milk in any

form and the acid from oranges, etc., being, I believe in most cases,

most dangerous, and probably accounting for many people’s failure

to keep lories, etc., on a milk sop diet. I imagine if fed on melons

and honey the above would not apply. He and all my birds which

are not outdoors are now in roomy box cages in a large room,

but will mostly go out either by day, on fine days, or altogether in

the summer. “ Lucifer ” will then meet his old flame, my hen

Rosy Cockatoo, with whom he was always most loving, sitting and

combing her head, a charming picture.



