24 THE SPEAKING PARROTS. 



which must, of course, be quite free from poison, be perfectly 

 dry. Of late a colourless lacquer has come into use, with 

 which the shining brass may be washed over, and then dried 

 so hard that the parrot's beak is not able to scratch it off, and, 

 at the same time, the brass cannot form verdigris. If the 

 unnatural round shape be set aside and the cage be built in 

 the '' Ornis " or some other practical shape, brass may be 

 chosen as the material. If this metal be used without the 

 lacquer and the cage requires cleaning, the bird must always 

 be taken out during the operation, and not put in again until 

 the polished bars have been thoroughly rubbed dry and clean 

 with a soft linen cloth. Most cleaning stuffs, especially the 

 so-called oxalic acid, are very poisonous. 



Many amateurs prefer, instead of a cage, to have the parrot 

 kept on an open stand in a ring or hoop. The arrangements of 

 this kind known at present aire, unfortunately, on the whole, 

 quite as unpractical and useless as many cages ; indeed, they 

 may, as a rule, be considered an article of luxury. They are to 

 be had of different kinds, and the worst of them are made 

 entirely, even including the perch, of the hardest polished 

 wood. What was said before on this point may here be 

 repeated — the perch must always be easily replaced. 



The simplest parrot stand is a frame of about the height of a 

 man, consisting of a column of hard polished wood, with a knob 

 on the top, and below, above the foot, a contrivance about 

 twenty-six inches long and twenty inches broad, in which is 

 placed a movable drawer, the floor of this being thickly strewn 

 with sand, as in the cage. On the sides of this are fixed the food 

 and water vessels, while on the column a stair-like climbing pole 

 of about six inches in width is attached, reaching up to the 

 upper perch, about twenty inches long. The perch must not 

 be too high, but passes at about the height of oft. Gin. 

 through the column. At the ends of this perch the food 

 and drinking vessels may be placed more conveniently than 

 below. The vessels must always be most securely fastened, 

 because the parrot sitting free thus employs itself all the more 

 busily with them. They are most suitably arranged as drawers 

 pushed into a leaden case, open at the top, the projecting edges 

 of which, bent inwards, hold them firmly. 



More frequently one sees parrot stands with hoops or rings 

 (Fig. 2). With the exception of the perch, they are, as a rule, 

 made entirely of metal. Respecting the material and the 



