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Col. Hudson—Jealous Cockatoos



Their food is mashed maize, barley, oats, Spratt’s pheasant food

(moistened), cooked and chopped carrots, sliced bread, mashed earth-

nuts, bilberries, wortleberries and other berries, a few meal-worms, and

in summer fresh ants’ pupae. As green food they get dandelion and

milfoil.


Capercaillies eat many buds and leaves of the' boughs of firs and

pines, while Black Cocks want a lot of birch branches, the buds of

which they like very much. The Grouse are fed on many berries and

more meal-worms. The Hazel Grouse especially like fruit and grapes,

and get smaller seeds, like millet, hemp, and so on. If the birds get

used to confinement, they will often live a long time and show all

those habits which are so attractive to the huntsman. The strangely

low pairing call of the cock Capercaillie can be observed from a short

distance, in the same way as the gobbling of the Black Cock and the

harsh cry of the Grouse. The red spots on the head of the cocks can

be seen swelling, the Grouse changing in colour from brown in summer

to white in winter and the Capercaillie moulting its bill.


Thus it is very interesting to keep these birds in captivity. It is

worth while to take all the trouble. In the Berlin Zoo Capercaillies,

Black Hens, and Grouse even laid eggs and hatched out young ones.



JEALOUS COCKATOOS


By Col. Hudson


I thought that this photo of my C. galerita and roseicapillus, both

males, might be of interest as examples of affection and jealousy in

very tame birds, both of which fly yet neither have chain nor cage.


Every time one monopolizes its master the other turns away in

disgust until occasionally the game terminates in a painful manner,

when each, annoyed at the lack of attention, seizes an ear—and

although blood is never drawn the bilateral attack is not pleasant.


The birds will sit for hours, one on each shoulder, and even during

a nap can be relied upon to remain in situ. Left alone within reach of

each other hostilities commence at once.



