KING PARROT; 'OR PARRAKEET. 95 



for curing complaints that, with a little care and attention, would never 

 have supervened to worry the owner and to kill the bird. 



Coughs are avoidable, so are fits, so is egg-binding, so are colds, 

 inflammations, and congestions, so are constipation and diarrhasa, and 

 so in point of fact are all the ills that captive birds are, not heirs, 

 but liable to, when kept by persons who think only of themselves and 

 neglect their prisoners, or who have their heads crammed full of useless 

 and too often mischievous old-fashioned notions as to feeding, coddling, 

 and depriving the poor creatures of water. 



Depend upon it, diseases are more readily prevented than cured. 

 Keep your birds out of draughts, feed them as you find recommended 

 in these pages, give them room to exercise their wings and feet in, 

 company and occupation, and you will find that there will be no diseases 

 to cure, and that old age, for which there is no preventive, will at 

 last gently and insensibly usher them into — we were about to write— a 

 better land, but — after all wbo can tell whether the Great and Good 

 Creator may not, in some portion of His boundless universe, have re- 

 served a place where the unhappy members of what men are pleased 

 to call the "brute" creation, may re-live their lives, and find compen- 

 sation for the ills that, by no fault of theirs, they were made to suffer 

 here? Who indeed! but we must forbear, the subject is not one for 

 discussion in these pages. 



The King Parrot is not a particularly bright or intelligent bird, still 

 an odd male, now and again, will become exceedingly tame, and learn 

 to repeat a few words, or even a short sentence, but to enable him 

 to do even this, he must be taken in hand when very young, and 

 much patience and perseverance be brought to bear upon the task. 

 The female is a very silent bird, and we never knew one that learned 

 to repeat even a single word: we are far, however, from saying that 

 such a phenomenon as a talking Queen Parrot is impossible, but simply 

 that we have neither seen nor heard of one. 



It is unfortunately true, as an author who is well known as inimical 

 to " dealers" asserts, that some importers of King Parrots "stove" up 

 their birds to make them moult their nest feathers prematurely, and 

 assume the adult garb, before the natural period for their doing so 

 has come round, for we have seen the cruel practice in operation, and 

 remonstrated, but were met by the assurance that the birds liked it, 

 and that it agreed with them. 



To which we replied that the poor things did not look as if they 

 enjoyed being half-cooked alive in the dark, and that we believed a 

 bird so treated was irretrievably weakened in constitution, and would 

 never live out half its days: but a King "in colour" being worth more 



