THE PARROT. 



113 



taking an axe, they opened the hole, and 

 thrusting- in their hands, first they plucked 

 out nothing but feathers ; afterwards they got 

 hold of a living animal ; and this \vas the 

 cuckoo that had waked so very opportunely 

 for its own safety. It was indeed," continues 

 our historian, " brisk and lively, but wholly 

 naked and bare of feathers, and without any 

 winter provision in its hole. This cuckoo the 

 boys kept two years afterwards alive in the 

 stove; but whether it repaid them with a se- 

 cond song, the author of the tale has not 

 thought fit to inform us." 



The most probable opinion on this subject 

 is, that as. quails and woodcocks shift their 

 habitations in winter, so also does the cuckoo; 

 but to what country it retires, or whether it 

 has ever been seen on its journey, are ques- 

 tions that I am wholly incapable of resolving. 



Of this bird there are many kinds in 

 various parts of the world, not only differing 

 in their colours, but their size. Brisson 

 makes not less than twenty-eight sorts of 

 them ; but what analogy they bear to our 

 English cuckoo, I will not take upon me to 

 determine. He talks of one, particularly of 

 Brazil, as making a most horrible noise in 

 the forests; which, as it should seem, must 

 be a very different note from that by which 

 our bird is distinguished at home. 1 



CHAP. VII. 



OF THE PARROT, AND ITS AFFINITIES. 



THE Parrot is the best known among us of 

 all foreign birds, as it unites the greatest 

 beauty with the greatest docility. Its voice 



1 In Europe we possess but one species of the Cuckoo. 

 In Africa there are several species, not the least remark- 

 able of which is called the Honey-guide Cuckoo, or In- 

 dicator. Its colour is rusty gray, and white beneath ; 

 the eyelids are naked, black ; shoulders with a yellow 

 spot; the tail is wedged, rusty; the bill is brown at the 

 base, and surrounded with bristles, yellow at the tip ; 

 feathers of the thighs white, with a longitudinal black 

 streak; the quill feathers above brown, beneath gray 

 brown; first tail feathers very narrow, and rusty; the 

 next sooty, the inner edge whitish ; the rest brown at 

 the tip on the inner web. The honey-guide cuckoo in- 

 habits the interior parts of Africa ; is six inches long ; 

 is fond of honey; and not being able to procure it from 

 the hollows of trees, by its note it is said to point it out 

 to the inhabitants, who leave it a part for its services, 

 and so highly value it on this account, that it is criminal 

 to destroy it. The accuracy of this statement has been 

 called in question both by Bruce and Le Vaillant, but 

 it is now fully confirmed. There are several varieties 

 of indicators. (For the Great Honey-guide, see Plate 

 XVI. fig. 23; Cupreous Cuckoo, ib. fig. 28; Blue 

 Cuckoo, ib. fig. 29; Senegal Coucal, ib. fig. bO; Mal- 

 coho, ib. fig. 31; African Cuckoo, ib. fig. 32; Lorig- 

 belh'ed Cuckoo, ib. fig. 19.) 



VOL. II. 



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 that 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~gfave writer, 

 that one of these was taught to repeat a whole 

 sonnet from Petrarch ; and that I may not 

 be wanting in my instance, I have seen a 

 parrot belonging to a distiller who had suf- 

 fered 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 

 shalt not bear false witness against thy neigh- 

 bour, with a very clear, loud, articulate voice. 

 The bird was generally placed in its cage 

 over against the informer's house, and de- 

 lighted the whole neighbourhood with its per- 

 severing exhortations. 



Willoughby tells a story of a parrot, which 

 is not so dull as those usually brought up 

 when this bird's facility of talking happens 

 to be the subject. " A parrot belonging to 

 King Henry VII. who then resided at West- 

 minster, in his palace by the river Thames, 

 had learned to talk many words from the 

 passengers as they happened to take the 

 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 rather 

 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 determination, which the bird hearing, 

 cried out, Give the knave a groat." 



The parrot, which is so common as a 

 foreign bird with us, is equally so as an in- 

 digenous bird in the climates where it is pro- 

 duced. 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 

 various species of this bird ; new varieties 

 daily offer to puzzle the system-maker, or to 

 demonstrate the narrowness of his catalogues. 

 Linnasus makes the number of its varieties 

 amount to forty-seven ; while Brisson doubles 

 the number, and extends his catalogue to 



