GREEN PARROTS 



GREEN parrots, as the long-tailed paroquets 

 of India are popularly called, although fairly 

 abundant during the cold weather, cannot 

 be said to be common birds in Madras. 

 This is a small mercy, for which all Madrassis should be 

 duly thankful. The green parrot is one of those good 

 things of which it is possible to have too much. Where 

 the beautiful birds are not too plentiful they are always 

 greatly admired and considered most pleasing additions 

 to the landscape ; where they abound most people find 

 it difficult to speak of them in parliamentary language. 

 The Punjab is the happy hunting-ground of green 

 parrots. I am now in a station where these birds prob- 

 ably outnumber the crows, where we are literally steeped 

 in green parrots, where we hear nothing else all day long 

 save their screeches and chuckles. 



Green parrots owe their unpopularity to their mis- 

 chievousness and their noisiness. " In their malignant 

 love of destruction and mischief," writes Colonel Cunning- 

 ham, " they run crows very hard, and seem only to fall 

 short of that standard through the happy ordinance that 

 their mental development has halted a good way behind 

 that of their rivals. They are, therefore, incapable of 

 devising such manifold and elaborate schemes of mischief 



190 



