302 VOCAL LANGUAGE. 



distinctness of utterance confined to the parrot. We are 

 told, for instance, of a jackdaw, at one of the Crystal Palace 

 bird shows in 1875, that it could speak ' 141 words as plain 

 as any human being' (' Animal World '). These correct 

 repetitions of man's words, when combined in sentences, 

 sometimes of considerable length, include 



1. The recitation of 



a. Quotations from Shakespeare or other dramatists or 

 poets. 



b. Creeds or portions of Church services. 



2. The giving of orders or commands. 



3. The use of oaths in vituperation. 



The parrot may do all this and a great deal more without 

 necessarily knowing the meaning of what it says it may 

 associate no ideas with the words or verbal sounds to which 

 it gives such glib utterance. 



It is too common an error of man's, however, to regard 

 the parrot as learning to articulate or utter and to repeat 

 words only by rote, without attaching any ideas to them as 

 school children, in point of fact, so much more frequently 

 do. It is a libel on the intelligence of the parrot to talk of 

 such school children repeating their catechism, for instance, 

 ' like a parrot,' as synonymous with c by rote.' 



That in children such an effort is mainly mechanical is 

 more than probable. No doubt the same may be the case in 

 some parrots, but it is certainly not true of all, and probably 

 not of many of them. Abundant evidence has been adduced 

 to show that many so-called talking parrots (which are 

 generally the common grey parrot, the most intelligent, 

 though not the most showy, of its race) attach man's ideas 

 to man's words learn their meaning, apply them properly, 

 not singly only, but in various combinations in other 

 words, speak sense and talk to the purpose. 



Endless stories have been told me, orally and by eye- 

 witnesses, of the pertinence of remark involved in the talking 

 feats of favourite parrots remarks of such a kind as some- 

 times shamed, sometimes astonished, their too indulgent 

 and too careless masters or mistresses. And I have met with 

 many incidents of a similar kind recorded in print. One or 



