THE SPEAKING PARROTS. 



flattened cylinders of elastic fibres, placed in layers, above 

 which the pituitous tunic of the tongue lies in several hard, 

 horny strata." In most varieties the tongue is of the former 

 nature ; only in a few — the great macaws and macaw cockatoos — 

 does it end in the horny point ; while in the lories and lorikeets 

 the latter peculiarity, as described by Dr. Weinland, shows 

 itself. It is not yet fully determined whether the bristled 

 tongue really serves, as has been asserted, for the purpose of 

 sucking up honey and flower juices, /"^t must be most par- 

 ticularly noticed that those kinds which have the thick, fleshy, 

 smooth tongue, i.e., the true parrots, show themselves best suited 

 for imitating human words ; but of the other families also, 

 including the lories or lorikeets, many have learnt to talk. 



Eegarding the mental endowments of parrots, the opinions 

 of ornithologists, as well as of bird-fanciers, are extremely 

 diverse. While one, in amiable partiality, and probably 

 also in confusion and involuntary exaggeration, classes the 

 speaking birds as nearly allied to man, not only ascribing to 

 them cunning and quick comprehension, but also reason and 

 warmth of feeling, another considers the utterance even of a 

 notably gifted and instructed bird solely as a mechanical 

 imitation speech, a mere chatter, undirected by any concep- 

 tion of the sense of the words. 



I shall not here enter particularly into the habits, &c., of 

 parrots in a state of nature, as I have already done so fully 

 in my before-mentioned larger work. But this knowledge is 

 necessary for the treatment of these birds in the cage. How 

 could we know in what way we should feed and tend them, and, 

 above all, successfully breed them and satisfy their wants, if we 

 knew nothing of their natural life and habits ? The parrot in 

 the aviary appears before us as in freedom, or, at any rate, in 

 a half-wild condition ; the speaker, on the contrary, appears to 

 us as a completely captive bird. In such a state it is deprived 

 of everything which freedom bestowed on it. It can neither 

 have its normal life nor sufficient motion. Air, light, tem- 

 perature, and especially food, are all changed, and the conditions 

 of its dwelling are only too strange. Here we must not act as 

 in breeding time, not imitate nature as faithfully as possible, 

 and supply what fails in as natural a manner as practicable ; but 

 on the contrary, we must create new circumstances, and satisfy 

 needs in a totally different manner. It must, however, be 

 thoroughly understood that it is not a matter of indifference in 



