Correspondence 111



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.


ELDERLY BANKSIAN COCKATOOS


I Lave just lost the last of the four Banksian Cockatoos I received

on Sir Charles Lawes-Witterong’s death about twenty-three years ago.

“ Timmie,” as she was called, in spite of her sex, was the least good

specimen of the quartet, but she has had a fairly adventurous career.

For three summers I kept her at liberty and she behaved, on the

whole, with discretion, only once going off on a long exploratory

flight for some days. About four years after I got her she and another

hen caught tuberculosis from a diseased Roseate and were terribly

ill but made most amazing recoveries from that fatal complaint.

Recovery was so complete that many years afterwards “ Timmie ”

laid and incubated two clutches of eggs, though I could never get her

a satisfactory mate.


Of the other three birds, the fine cock “ Teddy ” unfortunately

contracted a fatal chill the second autumn I had him. One hen I sent

to Germany as an exchange ; the other strayed in company with

a very wild new cock whose flying powers I underestimated, and was

never heard of again.


I still have a magnificent hen, bought from Mrs. Anningson, which

I believe to have been about forty years in captivity. She lays and

sits not infrequently but so far the eggs have always been infertile,

although her mate is very attentive to her.


I have had further evidence this winter of the great hardiness

of the African Grey Parrot. In the late autumn I was misled by an

imaginative vendor into buying an alleged cock as a mate for Canon

Dutton’s old “ Polly ”. On coming into breeding condition “ he ”

proved to be a hen, but until I recently gave her away she throve in

a small outdoor aviary with nothing but shelter from direct wind

and wet and no closed shelter at all.



Tavistock.



