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Prebendary Lambrick — The Story of a Tame Book



replaces, really — with a baby Blue-fronted Amazon, a funny little thing

with no wing or tail feathers, in fact very few feathers at all, but mostly

brown clown. In this bird the pelvic bones lie close together, touching

each other, and I have no hesitation in pronouncing him a cock. I

tamed him in two days, that is to say, he would come on my hand,

lie on his back on my lap, and let me kiss and stroke him, but he will

never adore me in the way Judy did, and has a very independent

nature, but he has moulted into a handsome bird and promises to be

an excellent talker and whistler.


My little Senegal Parrot, who in point of size and colouring is quite

as beautiful as the one so many of us know and admire in the Parrot-,

house at the Zoo, with the exception that in mine the head is a trifle

smaller, has the pelvic bones about £ in. apart, and I feel quite sure

in my own mind that she is a hen. In the very few dead specimens that

I have been able to examine I have nor found that the pelvic bones of

either sex look very different, and I am inclined to think that what

one feels in a live cock bird is not so much bone matter as cartilage or

gristly matter, extending on beyond the pelvic bones down to a fine

point, and which in a dead bird gets quickly shrivelled up so that one

cannot find it.


There may not be much in this theory, but certain it is that in some

birds the bones are wide apart, in others close together, and one

naturally asks oneself if this does not denote sex. Why, then, should it

be ? Perhaps some other members who have had more experience and

opportunity of studying these things will be able to help in determining

this question.



THE STORY OF A TAME ROOK


By Prebendary Lambrick


One of the prettiest features of our country rectory is its beautiful

avenue, but what we appreciate more than its beauty is the large colony

of Rooks that inhabits it. We have more than fifty nests, and the

birds are an unfailing source of interest.


The old birds, the patriarchs, live at the top end, near the road, the

younger ones near the house. Is it possible that what we often hear



