250 BIRDS AND MAN 



hovering above my head and deafening me with 

 their outrageous screams. Bat I cannot go to those 

 beautiful distant places I must be content with an 

 image and a memory of things seen and heard, and 

 with the occasional sight of a bird, or birds, kept by 

 some intelligent person ; also with an occasional 

 visit to the Parrot House in Regent's Park. There 

 the uproar, when it is at its greatest, when innumer- 

 able discordant voices, shrill and raucous, unite in one 

 voice and one great cry, and persons of weak nerves 

 stop up their ears and fly from such a pandemonium, 

 is highly exhilarating. 



Of the most interesting captive parrots I have 

 met in recent years I will speak here of two. The 

 first was a St Vincent bird, Chrysotis guildingi, 

 brought home with seven other parrots of various 

 species by Lady Thompson, the wife of the then 

 Administrator of the Island. This is a handsome 

 bird, green, with blue head and yellow tail, and is 

 a member of an American genus numbering over 

 forty species. He received his funny specific name 

 in compliment to a clergyman who was a zealous 

 collector not of men's souls, but of birds' skins. 

 To ornithologists this parrot is interesting on account 

 of its rarity. For the last thirty years it has existed 

 in small numbers ; and as it is confined to the 



