INTRODUCTION. vii 



Being somewhat in doubt, apparently, as to the advisability or otherwise 

 of the proceeding, he wrote for information, and we replied that if the 

 bird would not talk when its tongue was in its natural condition, it most 

 decidedly would not do so when that organ had been split in half! instancing 

 a case in point of another correspondent who wrote to tell us of a jay he 

 had had for some time, which had begun to talk nicely, when, acting on 

 the advice of some one, he had split the poor creatures tongue, and it had 

 never said a word afterwards. 



Many people write to enquire how they are to teach their Parrots to speak : 

 are they to be kept in the dark, starved, or pampered, or should they be 

 placed where they will always see and hear people about them? 



To this we reply, there is a great deal of difference in Parrots, even when 

 belonging to the same species, with regard to the faculty of imitating human 

 speech and domestic sounds. Some will pick up words and phrases they 

 have heard but once and repeat them accurately, while others will keep on 

 year after year without learning to say a single word. They vary in disposition 

 and intelligence as much as children do, and no hard and fast rule can 

 be laid down for teaching them. 



Given, say a Grey Parrot of average intelligence and docility, the best 

 way to teach him to speak, is to constantly repeat in his hearing the word 

 or words it is wished he should learn, and with patience and perseverance 

 he will in all probability do so after a longer or shorter course of training; 

 then when he has acquired one sentence or word, begin to teach him another, 

 and continue in the same way until his repertory becomes as extended as 

 that of the famous bird for which a Cardinal once gave one hundred golden 

 crowns, because it could repeat the Lord's Prayer and the Apostles' Creed. 



Some birds, however, will never learn to say anything, or at most but a 

 word or two, and upon these the most patient teaching is simply thrown 

 away; they are, in all probability females, and are as incapable of imitating 

 articulate sounds as hen birds in general are of singing. 



On the other hand, we have known some good talkers, especially among 

 the greys, that proved their sex by laying eggs, just as we have now and 

 then met with females that warbled nearly as well as their mates, or hens 

 that crowed like Chanticleer: still these are exceptions to the rule that a 

 talking or singing bird belongs to the masculine gender. 



It is not necessary to keep a Parrot in the dark, or fasting, in order to 

 teach it to speak, on the contrary the bird should be well fed, and supplied 

 with everything to make it happy and comfortable ; good food, hemp, maize, 



