Walter Goodfellow—The Royal Parrot Finch 177


novelty wore off, and left ns ; in fact, most of them seemed to think it

derogatory to catch birds at all except for food, and laughed at those

who did. We never found one man who carried on right through to

the end. It was rather surprising how few full plumaged birds were

caught. We must have had quite twenty before we got one with a

red head, although at the last they were rather more numerous.


We arrived on the island in early December, and some of those

caught then still showed the iridescent lumps at the gape, and had more

or less yellow bills of the very young birds, so I think they commence

to breed in October or even earlier. A nest containing three very young

birds was brought in after the first week. This is placed in a fork, or

between two branches 30 or more feet above the ground. It is a

large domed structure more oblong than round, rather loosely

constructed 18 inches deep, with the opening at one end. The

materials used in every case were dried grass, dead leaves, fibre, and

the curly tendrils of some vine. The whole thing had a very bleached

appearance and many of the dead leaves were skeletonized. All over

the island grow great thickets of a tall reed-like grass 12 or more

feet high which are used by the natives to thatch their houses, and it

is the long narrow leaves of these, torn up, which the birds use. The

fine fibre had also been stripped out and very freely used. This seemed

rather a dangerous material, as a young bird from the first nest had got

some of it tightly twisted round a leg bringing the foot up to the thigh,

and so completely crippled I had to destroy it. In another nest was one

entangled by the wing, which was so badly swollen I thought it would

have to go too, but it eventually got all right and now I can’t pick the

bird out, but it was bad for a long time. The nests have no lining

but at the bottom is a loose litter of broken grass and leaves probably

caused by the birds shuffling about. It was always difficult to get the

young ones out without entirely breaking up the nest, for as I have

mentioned before, their feet and claws are very strong, even more

pronounced when young, and with these they hold on to anything they

can grip, so much so that whenever one was picked up it always brought

another with it, either by the head, wing, or leg, and tightly they held

them too. The claws were also used freely for climbing about. The

opening to the nest was usually fouled by droppings which consisted



