GREY PARROT. 47 



for the G-rey Parrot is a long-lived bird, and slowly reaches maturity. 

 When removed from his companions, the poor young creature dies of 

 slow starvation, and the disconsolate owner wonders, and buys another 

 to meet, probably, with a similar fate. 



The only way to preserve these young Parrots is to boil their corn 

 until soft, chew a mouthful, and placing the beak of the bird in the 

 mouth, let it feed itself there as it has been used to do from the 

 mouths of its father and mother, or its kind companions in the dealer' s 

 shop. 



There is a vile prejudice still existing in this country against giving 

 water to Parrots; but we have already so fully descanted upon its 

 absurdity, not to say wickedness, that we need merely here remark, 

 that all animals drink, and can be kept without water only to their 

 detriment and manifold discomfort: but the water must be fresh and 

 clean, that is a sine qua non : foul water means diarrhasa, inflammation 

 of the bowels, fever, and death. 



The Grey Parrot, as we have remarked, grows slowly, and attains 

 to a green old age: some specimens are reported to have lived for 

 sixty, eighty, and even one hundred years, but for the truth of this 

 statement we are unable to vouch. 



Apropos of the bird under consideration, a writer in a recent number 

 of the Daily Telegraph, under the heading On the Congo with Stanley, 

 says: "Flocks of Grey Parrots flew across the sky, alternately screeching 

 and whistling melodiously. I have seen it stated erroneously that the 

 Grey Parrot never whistles in a wild state. On the contrary, it does 

 so very sweetly, and with a great variety of note/' 



Well, one certainly lives and learns : it is comprehensible nevertheless 

 that the sibilant utterances of Erithacus in a state of freedom may be 

 devoid of the concentrated bitterness that usually marks his attempts 

 at vocalization in captivity, when his temper has been spoiled, and 

 his digestion ruined, by alternate teasing and stuffing with inappro- 

 priate tit bits; or the writer of the above quotation may, by the sight 

 of the wild birds, have been pleasantly reminded of some familiar 

 "Polly" of his acquaintance, and the associate ideas connected there- 

 with, have lent a melody to the Parrot's notes they might not otherwise 

 have possessed: we never saw any wild Parrots (we do not include 

 Parrakeets) that did anything else but scream horribly; but then, of 

 course, it does not follow that others may not have been more for- 

 tunate, and we certainly have not been on the Congo, wandered on 

 the shores of Stanley Pool, or gazed on the luxuriant vegetation that 

 adorns the islands dotted on the surface of its limped waves: "palms 

 beautiful and symmetrical, with hanging clusters of bright orange- 



