126 A HISTORY OF 



CHAPTER V 



OP THE PARROT AND ITS AFFINITIES. 



THE Parrot is the best known among us of all foreign birds, as n 

 unites the greatest beauty with the greatest docility. Its voice also 

 is more like a man's than that of any other ; the raven is too hoarse, 

 and the jay and magpie too shrill to resemble the truth ; the parrot's 

 note is of the true pitch, and capable of a number of modulations thut 

 even some of our orators might wish in vain to imitate. 



The ease with which this bird is taught to speak, and the great 

 number of words which it is capable of repeating, are no less surpris- 

 ing. We are assured, by a grave writer, that one of these was told 

 to repeat a whole sonnet from Petrarch ; and that I may not be want- 

 ing in my instance, I have seen a parrot, belonging to a distiller, who 

 had suffered pretty largely in his circumstances from an informer who 

 lived opposite him, very ridiculously employed. This bird was taught 

 to pronounce the ninth commandment, Thou shall not bear false 

 witness against thy neighbour, with a very clear, loud, articulate voice. 

 The bird was generally placed in its cage over against the informer's 

 house, and delighted the whole neighbourhood with its persevering 

 exhortations. 



Willoughby tells a story of a parrot, which is not so dull as those 

 usually brought up when the bird's facility of talking happens to be 

 the subject. " A parrot belonging to King Henry the Seventh, who 

 then resided at Westminster, in his palace by the river Thames, had 

 learned to talk many words from the passengers as they happened to 

 take water. One day, sporting on its perch, the poor bird fell into 

 the water, at the same time crying out, as loud as he could, A boat ! 

 twenty pounds for a boat ! A waterman, who happened to be near, 

 hearing the cry, made to the place where the parrot was floating, 

 and taking him up restored him to the king. As it seems the bird 

 was a favourite, the man insisted that he ought to have a reward ra- 

 ther equal to his services than his trouble ; and, as the parrot had 

 cried twenty pounds, he said the king was bound in honour to grant 

 it. The king at last agreed to leave it to the parrot's own determin- 

 ation, which the bird hearing, cried out, (five the knave a groat." 



The parrot, which is so common as a foreign bird with us, is equal 

 ly so as an indigenous bird in the climates where it is produced. 

 The forests swarm with them ; and the rook is not better known with 

 us than the parrot in almost every part of the East and West Indies. 

 It is in vain that our naturalists have attempted to arrange the vari- 

 ous species of this bird ; new varieties daily offer to puzzle the sys- 

 tem-maker, or to demonstrate the narrowness of his catalogues. 

 Linnaeus makes the number of its varieties amount to forty-seven ; 

 while Brisson doubles the number, and extends his catalogue to nine- 

 ty-five. Perhaps even this list might be increased, were every acci- 



