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size is a different thing altogether, and in previous cases I have

never ventured to operate thus.


II.


Have you heard the Long-tailed Grass-finch call for his

early tea in the morning ? It was quite ludicrous when I had one

of these little birds in my bedroom for a few days to hear him

begin about the time when the servants were stirring—“ Tea-ee-

ee! Tea-ee-ee ! ! ” long clear calls one after the other, exactly as

if he wished to share in our matutinal beverage.


III.


If Parrots were only not so mischievous they would be so

much more amusing kept loose than in cages. My young Double-

fronted Amazon, that I brought from Jamaica, is the most rest¬

less, worrying baby you can imagine, always in mischief. I am

thinking of getting him a nurse, and I am sure going out in a

perambulator would give him the greatest possible delight. He

is never still for an instant except when shut up in his cage, and

if that confinement lasts too long he mopes. Anything bright

attracts his attention at once, and he has snatched and more or

less broken with his dreadful white bill all the articles of

jewellery I habitually wear. He has cracked the pearls on my

chain, and broken two bracelets, and tries his very best to spoil

my rings, always grabbing at the stones when he gets a chance.

I may do anything with him, although he now and then gives

me a shrewd nip, but my husband he hates (and all other men)

watches his opportunity, and gives them a vicious, twisting pinch.

He tumbles about like a kitten in my lap, and spends much time

teasing the unlucky maid who may be peeling apples or other¬

wise getting food ready in the kitchen, where I send him to

recreate, since there is less there for him to destroy than elsewhere

in the house. He laughs and cries like a whole family of nigger

babies, reproduces all the noises he can collect, especially the

vulgar voices and expressions of any low class people such as go

by outside on a bank holiday or on Sundays, uses the usual Pretty

Polly and Hullo vocabulary freely in lots of different voices, and

shows off with great pride a quantity of the worst possible Spanish

swears he acquired from an accomplished lilac and green

individual on board ship. This latter must certainly have gone

through the Cuban war.


IV.


My hen Alexandrine is the least mischievous of the

parrots. You might suppose the quiet Eclectus, sitting so primly



