

STUDIES OF ANIMAL SPEECH. 437 



spoken tongue. It is also a historical fact that when, in 1509, 

 the Spanish freebooters Nicuesa and Ojeda wished to surprise the 

 village of Yurbaco, on the Isthmus of Darien, in order to capture 

 a cargo of slaves, the vigilant parrots in the tops of the trees an- 

 nounced the approach of the enemy, and thus enabled the inhab- 

 itants to escape. 



Perhaps the most cultivated and certainly the most celebrated 

 parrot of which we have any record belonged from 1830 to 1840 

 to a canon of the cathedral of Salzburg, named Hanikl, who gave 

 the bird regular instruction twice a day, from nine to ten in the 

 morning and from ten to eleven in the evening. The parrot made 

 rapid progress in the development of its mental faculties, and 

 soon showed what a remarkable degree of intelligence it is pos- 

 sible for such a creature to attain under systematic tuition. The 

 sayings and doings of this parrot which lived fourteen years after 

 Hanikrs death and died in 1854, have been reported by a num- 

 ber of careful and competent observers and are unquestionably 

 authentic. One day, as some one entered the room, it cried out in 

 a harsh tone, " Where do you come from ? " On seeing that the 

 person was an ecclesiastical dignitary, it added, apologetically: 

 " Oh, I beg pardon of your Grace ; I thought it was a bird." It took 

 part in general conversation, and was sometimes so loquacious 

 that it had to be told to stop ; it was also fond of talking to itself, 

 and imagining all sorts of exciting scenes : " Beat me, will you ? 

 Beat me, will you ? Oh, you rascal ! Yes, yes, that's the way of 

 the world." It whistled tunes and sang various popular songs, 

 and even learned an entire aria from Flotow's opera of Martha. 



A parrot of the same species (Psittacus eriihacus), ash-gray, 

 with scarlet-red tail, is now in the possession of M. Nicaise, a mem- 

 ber of the Anthropological Society of Paris. This bird is nearly 

 fifty years of age, and endowed with wonderful versatility of 

 intellect. It imitates to perfection all the calls and cries of the 

 street, and when in 1870 it was sent aw,ay from the beleaguered 

 city into the country, it came back with its repertory immensely 

 enlarged, having learned to reproduce the whistle of the quail, the 

 hoot of the owl, the merry scream of the magpie, the crow of the 

 cock, the cluck of the hen, and the tones of a great variety of 

 wild birds and domestic fowls and quadrupeds. One of its his- 

 trionic masterpieces is the phonetic representation of the killing 

 of a pig which it witnessed nearly a quarter of a century ago, 

 but of which it has not forgotten a single characteristic grunt or 

 squeal. Nothing is omitted, from the deep gutturals, alternating 

 with piercing shrieks, as the porker is dragged to the place of 

 slaughter, to the last faint groan of the dying animal. Indeed, the 

 reproduction of the scene is so intolerably realistic, that the per- 

 sons present are fain to stop their ears and to bid the bird keep si- 



