44



PARROT NOTES.


By the Hon. and Rev. F. G. Dutton.


(Continued from Vol. IV. page 174).


AMAZONS.


After Conurus, Brotogerys ought to follow, but I have

never kept any of that genus. I intend to do so some day, for

they seem to be tameable little things, with a certain capacity

for speech, but the convenient season has not arrived yet. I

suggested to Mr. Phillipps, who has kept them, that he should

fill up the gap, but I have not heard that he has consented to do

so. I have been told they are noisy, otherwise I should have

thought they ought to be more popular than Red-rumps and

that tribe, for they are much more human.


The Amazons form a large subjedt: even of them, I dare

say there are two-thirds that I have not kept. I divide them in

my own mind into three classes—1st, the large; 2nd, the medium;

3rd, the small.


I do not know that the large contains more than fivespecies,.

viz., Chrysotisguildingi, C. farinosa, C. inomata , C. augusta, and

C. bouqueti. Three of these guildingi , augusta , and bouqueti, are

very rare ; the first is confined to the Island of St. Vincent, and

the last two to that of Dominica. I have wondered what effect the

late hurricane may have had on guildingi. We were told by the

correspondent of the Times that all the trees had been destroyed,

and all the winged insedls. One could not help wondering if

C. guildingi might not have gone to swell the number of extinbt

species.


I am not sure that I have ever seen C. bo 7 iqueti and C.

augusta: C.guildingi I have not only seen at the Zoo, but very

nearly had. They are, as I have said, confined to the Island of

St. Vincent,and a clergyman, to whom I wrote, told me that they

were only got by being shot, when, if the wound was not mortal,,

they were caged. There was a hen-bird shot near him, which was

so far tamed that it learned to answer “ Alec,” to the question

“ Who shot you ? ” Soon after he told me this, he wrote that his

son had shot one which was absolutely uninjured, and which I

could have if I liked. I closed with the offer ; but just as I was

arranging for its transport, the bird managed to open its cage

and escaped. The negroes appear to make no effort, like the

Indians of South America, to take the young and bring them up :

consequently there does not seem much likelihood of anyone



