THE SPEAKING PARROTS. 



valuable speakers, have, up to the present time, scarcely ever been 

 made ; on the one hand, because such a pair of birds would 

 require a very large space for the purpose, and on the other, 

 and chiefly, because one would not wish to expose valuable 

 speakers to danger, or even to risk those parrots which pro- 

 mise to repay their training well. This apprehension, however, 

 is not well founded ; for, according to my experience, the bird 

 is by no means more than ordinarily endangered during hatching, 

 if treated competently. 



CHAP. IX.— THE TRUE PARROTS. 



Talents as Speakers — Natural Historij — Existence in Captivitij. 



The class of True Parrots, with which the Grey Parrots 

 {Psittaciis, L.) and the Black Parrots {Coracopsis, Wgl.) are 

 -connected, includes the most noted of all the talkers. There 

 are six varieties, two grey and four black, which, at the 

 first glance, appear so different, and, on closer acquaintance, 

 show so little agreement in their peculiarities, that the 

 amateur might scarcely consider them as related, while the 

 scientific observer ranks them together. The characters in 

 which they agree are : Their beaks rounded off at the side, 

 more or less broad and arched, with rounded top ; upper 

 beak without dental section, indented like a file ; under beak 

 lower, with a rounded socket edge gently bending out before the 

 point ; nostrils large and round ; the cere, lores, and the broad 

 circle round the eye (eye cere) bare ; tongue thick, smooth, with 

 blunt end ; wings long and pointed, from nine to twelve pinion 

 feathers ; tail broad, almost straight or rounded ; plumage soft, 

 each feather ending abruptly ; feet strong, with thick tarsus 

 and powerful crooked nails ; size between a jackdaw and a 

 crow. In the Grey Parrot the beak is longer, more closely 

 pressed together, with longer and thinner point, the tail is short, 

 almost straight, the feathers bracket-shaped at the end. In the 

 Black, on the contrary, the beak is thick, as high as it is 

 long, with short, slightly prominent point ; the tail is longer 

 and more rounded. Both appear to differ from the species 

 most nearly related to them (the Amazon, or Short-winged 

 Parrots) by the naked parts of the face ; in the Black species. 



