TALKING PARROTS. 433 



family, viz., excites their loquacity and gaiety. They climb in a 

 peculiar manner, which has nothing of the abruptness displayed by 

 other birds of the same order. This they accomplish with slow and 

 irregular movements, helped by their beak and feet, which lend a 

 reciprocal support. Like almost all birds of tropical regions, this 

 family are adorned with most beautiful colours, green predominating ; 

 sometimes red, and even blue and yellow. They have often largely- 

 developed tails. 



Notwithstanding their prattling, Parrots are the favourites of the 

 human family, from their remarkable talent of imitation. They retain 

 and repeat with great facility words which they have learned or heard 

 by chance, and also sometimes imitate, with startling resemblance, 

 the cries of animals, the sounds of different musical instruments, &c. 



By the words that they utter in an unexpected manner, Parrots 

 contribute to our amusement and diversion, and quite become 

 companions. Is it then to be wondered at that these birds have 

 been eagerly sought since their introduction into Europe ? Alexander 

 the Great brought into Greece a parrot which he had found in India. 

 These birds became so common in Rome at the time of the Emperors 

 that they figured in their sumptuous repasts. They are now spread 

 throughout Europe in a domestic state. 



The species most remarkable for their mimic babbling faculties 

 are the Grey Parrot or Jaco, a native of Africa, and the Green Parrot, 

 from the West Indies and tropical America. 



It is reported that in the sixteenth century a cardinal paid a 

 hundred crowns for a parrot because it recited the Apostles' Creed 

 correctly. Monsieur de la Borde relates that he has seen a parrot 

 supply the place of chaplain to a ship, for he recited the prayer and 

 the litany to the sailors. Levaillant heard a parrot say the Lord's 

 Prayer lying on its back, placing together the toes of its feet as we 

 join our hands in the act of prayer. Willoughby mentions a parrot 

 which, when he said to him, " Laugh, parrot ! " immediately burst out 

 laughing, and cried out an instant after, " Oh, the great fool who made 

 me laugh ! " A keeper of a glass shop possessed one which, whenever 

 he broke anything or knocked over a vase, invariably exclaimed, in 

 tones of anger, "Awkward brute, he never does anything else !" 



"We have seen a parrot," says Buffon, "which had grown old 

 with his master, and partaken with him the infirmities of age. 

 Accustomed to hear little more than the words, 'lam ill,' when 

 asked, ' How are you, parrot — how are you ? ' ' I am ill/ it replied 

 in doleful tones, ' I am ill,' and, stretching itself on the hearth, ' I am 

 ill.' " "A parrot from Guinea," says the same author, "being taught 



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