THE GRAY PARROT. 75 



enough to please alike the Quaker, the gamin, and 

 the rector. In teaching, speak in clear, ringing tones, 

 pitched on rather a high key. Babies learn to talk 

 some in from twelve to eighteen months ; parrots 

 learn to talk some in from four to twelve months. I 

 have known a gray to be taught for twelve months 

 and not utter a word ; then one morning he said, 

 " Hurrah ! " and in six months more could speak fifty 

 or sixty words with elegant accents, and whistle two 

 songs. If we ask how talented a speaking bird may 

 become, the answer presents many difficulties. 

 Brehm, a great authority on birds in Germany, gives 

 an account of a gray parrot, which talked in three 

 languages as clearly as a human being, and at the 

 same time often caught up forms of speech which had 

 never been repeated to it, and which it then applied 

 suitably to the -astonishment of all. He also gives 

 this example of its sharpness. A fat major, whom it 

 knew well, one day paid a visit to teach it tricks. 

 " Get up on the stick, Polly ; up on the stick ! " com- 

 manded the bold warrior. The parrot was decidedly 

 annoyed. Then suddenly it laughed loudly and said, 

 " Up with you on the stick, major ! " Brehm describes 

 this as a witticism of the bird's, and adds, " I cannot 

 relate all this parrot said and did : it was half human." 

 " I had to wait," says one owner, " fully eight months 

 before my gray pronounced one word ; but then I was 

 richly rewarded, for it learned something new almost 

 every day, and now, after four years, there is scarcely 

 any expression in the daily conversation of the family 

 which it has not learned to repeat ; and how well it 



