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A YELLOW-FRONTED AMAZON


By A. G. Butler, Ph.D.


The Hon. and Rev. F. G. Dutton has expressed a wish to

hear of the experience of other members of the Society touch¬

ing Amazon Parrots.


About 1893 an aunt of mine, who was moving, asked me

if I should like to have her old Amazon Parrot: the bird had

been twenty years in her possession and had previously been the

pet of two other owners, though for how long she could not

ascertain. As I understood that it was a good talker I gladly

accepted it, and it remained in my possession until its death in

February, 1898 : it is quite likely that this parrot was from forty

to fifty years old when it died.


Mr. Abrahams, who saw our Amazon soon after it was

given to us, unhesitatingly declared it to be a hen (I believe

chiefly on account of the pale colour of its eyes) and dissection

after its death proved conclusively that he was correct.


The bird was a Yellow-fronted Amazon ; and, so far from

being unable to talk, it had entirely forgotten its own language ;

so that when enraged (as it was off and on every day of its life)

it shouted at the top of its voice exactly like a naughty boy :

indeed on one occasion a visitor to our house imagined that a

drunken man must have got into the kitchen, where the bird was

kept.


Dike most birds, and especially Amazons, Polly was

intensely jealous and exceedingly treacherous : even our

servant, who used to walk about with the bird on her shoulder

and who could do almost what she pleased with it, got bitten

once or twice. It liked me very well and soon learned to call

me Arthur, but my wife was no favourite aud my son it detested,

which did not surprise me, since he always teased it for the

fun of hearing it shout and sob.


As Mr. Dutton says of the Blue-fronted Amazon, our bird

often had conversations with itself, the questions being almost

all unintelligible and the answers invariably ‘ No! ’ spoken

very decidedly. It undoubtedly knew when to say certain things

and only said them at the proper time : for instance if it saw

any of us dressed to go out it would say—‘ Are you going out ? >


‘ Are you going in the Park ? ’ and as you left the room it said

‘ Good-bye ’ or ‘ Good-dight ’ always saying the first in the morn¬

ing and the second in the evening.


Perhaps the greatest proof of the reasoning power of these

birds was that when my servant w 7 ent upstairs leaving Polly



