E. Maud Enobel — Sexing Parrots



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hitherto employed are by carefully noting any differences that may

occur. Even then it is very difficult if you have an old hen and a

young cock. say. for example, of a Blue-fronted Amazon, and one can

never be quite sure. May I venture to put forward another suggestion

for determining the sexes ? In doing so I should like it to be borne in

mind that I am speaking of parrots only, for it is solely in this family

of birds that my experience lies. This is by carefully feeling the bird

in the neighbourhood of the pelvis. In the cock bird you will find the

pelvic bones taper down to a point and lie so close together that they

are practically touching, whereas in a hen bird the pelvic bones are

wide enough apart to allow an egg to pass through.


In my Alexandrine Parrot, which I know is a cock bird by the

black and rose collar, the pelvic bones lie close together, and I find the

same in my small Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, which has black eyes, and

whose general demeanour pronounces him a cock bird. Out of the eight

Blue-fronted and two Yellow-fronted Amazons I have kept I believe

only two were male birds, and I am inclined to think that the majority

of birds that come over to this country are females. Mr. C. P. Arthur,

in his account of Grey Parrots in his book Parrots for Pleasure and

Profit , says much the same thing, i.e. that he has not found a single

male among the many he has dissected.


Last year I had a charming Yellow-fronted Amazon (Judy), which

I subsequently determined to be a hen. I must say the first time I saw

her in a shop I was not greatly taken with her, but the next day I

visited her again, when she promptly stepped off her perch on to my

hand. I at once bought her and carried her home. The very first

morning I let her out she flew^ across the room on to my shoulder,

and never have I had a bird which formed so great an attachment as

she did. She was really never happy unless she w r as on me, and she was

the most gentle and playful little creature I have ever had. Yet she

was undoubtedly a hen, and this entirely does away w T ith the theory

that male birds like women and females men. In her case, from out-ward,

examination, the pelvic bones were quite an inch apart, and dissection

after death, which came all too soon, proved her unquestionably to be

a hen. I missed her so much and was so unhappy at her loss that two

days after I replaced her—if one can say such a thing, for one never



