Parrots ^ Parakeets 169 



It is much better to give a bigger price for a 

 finger-tame bird, the colour of whose eyes prove him 

 to be more than a nestling. 



Quite young grey parrots have dark grey eyes, 

 adult birds have pale yellow ones. 



I have known people give ten shillings or twelve 

 shillings time after time for these newly-imported 

 parrots, only to lose each one, when a ;^5 note, already 

 spent in driblets, would have been better laid down in 

 a lump. 



Certainly, taking it all round, the grey parrot is 

 the most clever talker, although some of the green 

 Amazons, as individuals, are wonderfully talented, 

 especially perhaps the double-fronted Amazon, a very 

 large green parrot with a primrose face and forehead 

 and pale flesh-coloured bill. The Amazons are, in a 

 way, more comical than the greys, and when one does 

 sing and laugh well, he would make the gravest person 

 smi/e, at any rate. 



There are several different kinds of Amazons, the 

 commonest in England, as a cage bird, being the blue- 

 fronted. 



He is green, with a yellow face and a small patch 

 of pale blue feathers on his forehead. 



There are about twenty-four species of the Amazon 

 family, one of the finest and best known being the 

 golden-naped Amazon. 



He is a large bird, as large as the double-fronted, 

 green in his general plumage, like the rest, but with 

 a bright yellow patch of feathers on the back of the 

 neck. 



