ABOUT PARROTS. 



i. 



Naturalists place^the parrot group at between touch and intellect. The opos- 

 the head of bird creation. This is done, sum is a marsupial ; it belongs to the same 

 not, of course, because parrots can talk, group of lowly-organized, antiquated and 

 but because they display, on the whole, pouch-bearing animals as the kangaroo, 

 a greater amount of intelligence, of the wombat, and other Australian mam- 

 cleverrtess and adaptability to circum- mals. Everybody knows that the mar- 

 stances than other birds, including even supials, as a class, are preternaturally 

 their cunning rivals, the ravens and d u \\ are perhaps the least intelligent of 

 the jackdaws. all existing quadrupeds. And this is 



It may well be asked what are the causes reasonable when one considers the sub- 

 of the exceptionally high intelligence in j ec t ) for they represent a very early type, 

 parrots. The answer which I suggest is the first "rough sketch" of the mam- 

 that an intimate connection exists malian idea, with brains unsharpened as 

 throughout the animal world between ye t by contact with the world in the fierce 

 mental development and the power of competition of the struggle for life as it 

 grasping an object all round, so as to displays itself on the crowded stage of the 

 know exactly its shape and its tactile great continents. They stand, in fact, 

 properties. The possession of an effec- to the lions and tigers, the elephants and 

 tive prehensile organ a hand or its horses, the monkeys and squirrels of 

 equivalent seems to be the first great America and Europe, as the native Aus- 

 requisite for the evolution of a high or- tralian stands to the American or the 

 der of intellect. Man and the monkeys, Englishman. They are the last relic of 

 for example, have a pair of hands ; and the original secondary quadrupeds, 

 in their case one can see at a glance how stranded for centuries on a Southern 

 dependent is their intelligence upon these island, and still keeping up among Aus- 

 grasping organs. All human arts base tralian forests the antique type of life that 

 themselves ultimately upon the human went out of fashion elsewhere a vast num- 

 hand ; and our nearest relatives, the an- ber of years ago. Hence they have brains 

 thropoid apes, approach humanity to of poor quality, a fact amply demon- 

 some extent by reason of their ever-active strated by the kangaroo when one 

 and busy little fingers. The elephant, watches his behavior in the zoological 

 again, has his flexible trunk, which, as gardens. 



we have all heard over and over again, is Every high-school graduate is well 

 equally well adapted to pick up a pin or aware that the opossum, though it is a 

 to break the great boughs of tropical for- marsupial, differs in psychological devel- 

 est trees. The squirrel, also, remarkable opment from the kangaroo and the wom- 

 for his unusual intelligence when judged bat. The opossum is active and highly 

 by a rodent standard, uses his little paws intelligent. He knows his way about the 

 as hands by which he can grasp a nut or world in which he lives. "A 'possum up a 

 fruit all round, and so gain in his small gum tree" is accepted by observant 

 mind a clear conception of its true shape minds as the very incarnation of animal 

 and properties. Throughout the animal cunning and duplicity. In negro folk- 

 kingdom generally, indeed, this chain of lore the resourceful 'possum takes the 

 causation makes itself everywhere felt ; place of the fox in European stories ; he 

 no high intelligence without a highly-de- i s the Macchiavelli of wild beasts ; there 

 veloped prehensile and grasping organ. is no ruse on earth of which he is not 



Perhaps the opossum is the best and amply capable; and no wily manoeuvre 



most crucial instance that can be found exists which he cannot carry to an end 



of the intimate connection which exists successfully. All guile and intrigue, the 



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