192 



FOREIGN BIRDS FOR CAGE AND AVIARY. 



fort and health of their birds, and (to save themselves 

 a little trouble) are satisfied to purchase the first packet 

 of hopelessly impossible seeds which claims to be a 

 suitable food for every kind of Parrot, so long also 

 as they persist in the senseless supposition that because 

 a Parrot talks it can be kept in health upon human 

 food, just so long will this interesting bird suffer from 

 all the ills to which a maltreated bird is heir vomit- 

 ing, lassitude, diarrhoea, cramp, fits, dryness and irrita- 

 tion of the skin, inducing feather-plucking, tumours, 

 septicaemia, and early death. 



I do not doubt that unhealthy conditions during 

 importation may be the cause of death in some cases, 

 but unquestionably by far the greater number of Grey 

 Parrots which die after importation would live if cor- 

 rectly fed from the beginning, instead of being poisoned 

 with sopped bread, table scraps, and so-called " Parrot 

 food," with most unwholesome and unnatural drinks. 



I have had to recommend treatment for many hun- 

 dreds of these birds, and 1 find, almost invariably, that 

 a bird which appears to be suffering from a severe cold, 

 accompanied by vomiting and diarrhoea, has been fed 

 partly upon sop in some form or other bread and milk, 

 bread or toast soaked in some breakfast drink; then 

 a bird which plucks itself has more often than other- 

 wise had some kind of animal food butter, cheese, 

 egg, bones, or some kind of flesh ; a bird with cramp 

 has often been fed upon "Parrot food" alone and 

 has selected certain seeds perhaps maize and sun- 

 flower throwing over all the others, and has got 

 itself into a thoroughly unhealthy condition in con- 

 sequence. For a Grey Parrot when at liberty maize 

 in the milky stage, millet, and other cultivated cereals 

 are natural food ; but that is no reason why the same 

 bird in captivity should be restricted to hard horse- 

 tooth maize and sunflower, with no variety unless it 

 chooses to eat prairie-grass seed, pumpkin seed, dry 

 bread stained with turmeric, monkey nuts, and dirt ; 

 or as a change dry chillies. As for fruit, of which in 

 its wild state the Grey Parrot eats quantities daily, the 

 owners of many unhappy individuals never think of it 

 as a necessary article for the bird's daily consumption. 



On May 20th, 1899, I had a young Grey Parrot sent 

 to me from Liverpool. I got it from an approved 

 source, and it reached me in tolerably good health, al- 

 though its bowels were somewhat relaxed. In the 

 cage I found boiled horse-tooth maize and the remains 

 of what looked like brown bread sop. I continued to 

 give boiled maize for several days, adding thereto 

 hemp, wheat, dari, canary, and cracknel biscuits ; I 

 also gave bananas, which the bird seized and devoured 

 ravenously. To cure the diarrhoea I gave the bird a 

 piece of cuttlefish bone to chew up. 



After a few days my Grey refused the boiled maize, 

 and I substituted a piece of stale household bread 

 (about a cubic inch), a piece of boiled potato of about 

 the same size, and part of an orange. Later on, as 

 oranges became scarce, I substituted pears and sweet- 

 water grapes, with walnut occasionally. If the bird 

 sneezed, I promptly mixed a few chillies with his 

 seeds. 



Although I had decided what to feed my bird on 

 before I purchased it, I made the unfortunate mistake 

 which many other Parrot owners make of covering the 

 cage over at night ; the result was that after it had 

 been some time in my possession and had become an 

 accomplished talker, it began to pluck out its breast- 

 feathers, and I only discovered the cause of the trouble 

 when it was too late to cure it. Across the bare patch 

 on the breast I saw several small black creatures run- 

 ning parrot-lice, as I discovered as soon ae I examined 



them through a lens. These wretched little parasites, 

 when seen with the naked eye, look not unlike the 

 Physopoda of the germs Thrips, which are so mis- 

 chievous in greenhouses ; but, when magnified, they are 

 seen to be true lice (Anophi-ra) t and bear a fugitive 

 resemblance to the Rove-beetles (Staphylinidce) of the 

 genus Stemis, though not when examined in detail. On 

 examining the cover I found dozens of these insects 

 concealed in the fold?, where they had harboured and 

 bred. Of course, I speedily got rid of the cover and 

 powdered the bird well with pyrethrum. All the para- 

 sites were exterminated, but the feather-plucking habit 

 induced by the irritation was established, and therefore 

 persisted in- to the end. 



I do not think there is much to be learned' by repeat- 

 ing the words and sentences spoken by any particular 

 Parrot. Each bird repeats what has been taught, occa- 

 sionally picking up a word or sentence which it has 

 chanced to hear, and sometimes unintentionally (very 

 rarely with intelligent comprehension of the meaning 

 of the words) uses them in ain apposite manner. A 

 Parrot easily learns 'to .comprehend the meaning of 

 names, and, having learned to know different persons by 

 their Christian names, never confuses one with another. 

 Thuis my bird knew that its own name was Bobby ; it 

 knew me as Arthur, my wife as Mary, my man as Tom, 

 and his sister as Ann. It would always call us by 

 name with perfect discernment. If I were making a 

 fuss over my English Jay, the Pa.rrot usually became 

 jealous, and called out, "Arthur! Arthur! Bobby's a 

 pretty boy," or "Poor Bobby! " and 'gave me no peace 

 until I took notice of him. Why Parrot-owners almost 

 invariably call their birds both male and female 

 " Polly," and speak of them as she, I never could under- 

 stand . 



My bird was poisoned early in 1905 through, eating 

 a berry of Solanum, given to ii in a fit of absent- 

 mindedness by a visitor I was away from home at the 

 time the .skin of the berry wasi found on the flocr of 

 its cage after its death. I have never purchased 

 another ; though if I were restricted to one bird as a 

 pet I think I should certainly choose a Grey Parrot, 

 because of the delight which its remark? occasion to 

 young and old alike. The grave manner in which my 

 bird looked at a perfect stranger, saying, " Hullo, eld 

 chap ! How's your grandmother? " and then as the 

 visitor turned round with a. laugh, added with evident 

 conviction, "You're a rascal!" was extremely funny, 

 and, though an old joke to me, gave fresh delight to 

 every newcomer. 



The Grey Parrot was successfully bred by Herr Fritz 

 Lotze in 19CO. two young- having been reared. 



TIMNEH PARBOT (Pnttacus timnr/i\. 



Dark grey ; lower back and rump pale grey ; flights 

 blackish; tail dull deep red. darker and browner at 

 margins of fetubfaers ; head and neck with paler edges 

 to the feathers ; forehead and orbital region naiked and 

 covered with small whitish papilke : abdomen pale 

 grey; longer under tail -coverts dark grey with a red- 

 dish tinge; upper mandible pale horn-colour becoming 

 black towards tip. lower mandible black ; feet grey ; 

 irides pale yellow or yellowish-white. Female smaller 

 than the male, and' in other r-espet-ts differing as in the 

 preceding species. Hab. . Liberia and Lower Sierra 

 Leone. Doubtless the habits of this species in a wild 

 state nearly resemble thoee of the Grey Parrot, which 

 it replaces in Liberia. According to Rusis it was re- 

 garded either as a young plumage or aberration of P. 

 erithacus, but is now established as a distinct species j 



