STRANGE BIRDS AND THEIR WAYS. 253 



torily for her meals, "Thomas, fetch my dinner — Poll's 

 hungry ! " 



3. She had one singular trait : she caught everybody's 

 laugh. I never noticed the peculiarity of laughs in my 

 family till "Poll" began to simulate them. From the 

 feminine giggle to the masculine guffaw — from the boister- 

 ous laugh of the children to the titter of the house-maid, 

 catching the gamut of every member of our household, 

 even to the suppressed hiccough of James the footman, 

 whose good English breeding allowed only the slightest 

 demonstration of any sentiment whatever — " Poll " would 

 deliver by the hour a series of idiosyncratic laughs, which, 

 amusing enough at first, made her imitations at last an in- 

 tolerable nuisance. When she once began her cachinna- 

 tions, nothing would stop her. Indeed, when attacked by 

 a gout that ended her life, her very last breath shaped itself 

 into a giggle, so true to its original that to those who stood 

 around her cage, mourning over her death-agonies, it was 

 irresistibly ludicrous. Laughing herself, she died in the 

 very odor of laughter. 



4. They tell a good story in Newgate Street, London, 

 of a parrot — or of two parrots rather, a gray and a green 

 one — belonging to Morley, a tradesman in the Old Bailey, 

 just opposite the prison, which is vouched for as true in 

 the strictest sense. The man had a wonderful " bird- 

 sense," and his power of training birds became famous 

 throughout the metropolis. He had taught his green par- 

 rot to speak whenever a knock was heard at his street- 

 door ; but when the bell of the same door was rung, he 

 had taught the gray parrot to answer. The house, still 

 standing, has one of those projecting porches that prevent 

 the second story from being seen from the pavement. One 

 day a person knocked. " Who is there ? " asked the green 

 parrot. "The man with the leather," was the reply. The 

 bird answered, "All right ! " and then became silent. After 



