BIRDS MEMORY. 269 



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dog. After a time I was interested in observing tbe discrimi- 

 native association between the back-door bell and the dog's bark 

 in the parrot's mind. Even when the dog was not there, or for 

 any other cause did not bark, the parrot would constantly bark 

 when the back-door bell sounded, but never (that I could hear) 

 when the front-door bell was heard. 



This is but a trifle in the way of intelligence, but it struck 

 me as an interesting analogous case to a law of association often 

 noticed by writers on human psychology. 



The celebrated parrot that belonged to the Buffon 

 family and of which the Comte de Buffon wrote, exhibited 

 in a strange manner the association of its ideas. For he 

 was frequently in the habit of asking himself for his own 

 claw, and then never failed to comply with his own request 

 by holding it out, in the same way as he did when asked 

 for his claw by anybody else. This, however, probably 

 arose, not, as Buffon or his sister Madame Nadault sup- 

 posed, from the bird not knowing its own voice, but 

 rather from the association between the words and the 

 gesture. 



According to Margrave, parrots sometimes chatter their 

 phrases in their dreams, and this shows a striking simi- 

 larity of psychical processes in the operations of memory 

 with those which occur in ourselves. 



Similarly, Mr. Walter Pollock, writes me of his own 

 parrot : 



In this parrot the sense of association is very strongly de- 

 veloped. If one word picked up at a former home comes into 

 its head, and is uttered by it, it immediately follows this word 

 up with all the other words and phrases picked up at the same 

 place and period. 



Lastly, parrots not only remember, but recollect ; that 

 is to say, they know when there is a missing link in a 

 train of association, and purposely endeavour to pick it 

 up. Thus, for instance, the late Lady Napier told me 

 an interesting series of observations on this point which 

 she had made upon an intelligent parrot of her own. They 

 were of this kind. Taking such a phrase as ' Old Dan 

 Tucker,' the bird would remember the beginning and the 

 end, and try to recollect the middle. For it woiild say 



