Parrots sp Parakeets 169 



It is much better to give a bigger price for a 

 finger-tame bird, the colour of whose eyes prove him 

 to be more than a nestling. 



Quite young grey parrots have dark grey eyes, 

 adult birds have pale yellow ones. 



I have known people give ten shillings or twelve 

 shillings time after time for these newly-imported 

 parrots, only to lose each one, when a ^5 note, already 

 spent in driblets, would have been better laid down in 

 a lump. 



Certainly, taking it all round, the grey parrot is 

 the most clever talker, although some of the green 

 Amazons, as individuals, are wonderfully talented, 

 especially perhaps the double-fronted Amazon, a very 

 large green parrot with a primrose face and forehead 

 and pale flesh-coloured bill. The Amazons are, in a 

 way, more comical than the greys, and when one does 

 sing and laugh well, he would make the gravest person 

 smile ', at any rate. 



There are several different kinds of Amazons, the 

 commonest in England, as a cage bird, being the blue- 

 fronted. 



He is green, with a yellow face and a small patch 

 of pale blue feathers on his forehead. 



There are about twenty-four species of the Amazon 

 family, one of the finest and best known being the 

 golden-naped Amazon. 



He is a large bird, as large as the double-fronted, 

 green in his general plumage, like the rest, but with 

 a bright yellow patch of feathers on the back of the 

 neck. 



