Correspondence 111


THEORIES ON DISTINGUISHING SEXES

Sirs,— In the Avicultural Magazine, p. 5, Miss Knobel writes

about a female Yellow-fronted Amazon and its affection towards its

mistress, stating : " Yet she was undoubtedly a hen, and this entirely

does away with the theory that male birds like women and females

men."


Personally I agree with the writer that there is nothing in that theory

as applicable to the Parrot tribe— there being too many birds which

contradict it by their attitude ; and in this connexion it is amusing

to mention that one bird known to me was on one occasion stated " to

be a male " by a supporter of the theory, and on a later occasion " to

be a female ", he not recognizing that he was being shown the same

bird on the two occasions ! But he never explained the so-called change

of sex ! As the remarks on the Blue-fronted Amazon, pp. 56, 57, were

already sent to the Editors when Miss Knobel's account appeared, and

its habits towards different human beings were intentionally omitted

(except 1. 11, p. 57) for shortness, it may be of interest to mention

now its usual behaviour towards four people : (1) a woman cousin of

of mine, disliked her very much ; (2) a man, myself, it disliked even

worse than the woman, although neither of us ever teased it, and its

dislike to me was so great that it used to strike at me with beak even

when I brought fruit to it in its cage — consequently I always kept

at very long arm's length when it was out of its cage ; (3) with another

man, the butler there, it was the best of friends, always allowed him to

handle it in the cage (except one day in a fit of temper it unexpectedly

bit him on the thumb, but became friendly again later in the day) ;

lastly (4), with the butler who came after he left, the bird was always

friendly. What is the theorist on " the affection-showing-sex-idea"

going to make of the aforementioned facts ? The theory is like a

bucket without a bottom — " won't hold water."


As to the remark : "It is said that a practised eye can easily tell

the sexes when a pair of birds are together," p. 4, last two lines, the

following scene between two birds of prey now in the Gardens, the

Fishing Eagles (Halicetus leucoryphts) from India, may be worth

mentioning. Soon after their arrival in August, 1920, I watched them

very carefully for some hours to see whether their sex could be



