66 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
to its owner ; it should also be in good general health, but by no 
means with a tendency to fat. The lessons should bo given prefer- 
ably in private, and either early in the morning or at twilight, when 
the pupil is more likely, than at other times, to be at leisure to pay 
attention to you. You should not begin with long sentences ; but, 
on the other hand, you need not confine yourself to monosyllables, 
as Dr. Russ advises. Very good sentences to commence with are — 
“ Good morning ! ” or “ Good night ! ” “ How are you ? ” “ Are you 
pretty well?” Hullo, old chap !” and so on. One sentence must 
be taught at a time, and until that is mastered no other should be 
repeated to the bird. 
A clever Parrot will often pick up a sentence very quickly, and 
will astonish you now and again by repeating some sentence which 
it has only once heard ; but when it does this it rarely adopts that 
sentence into its vocabulary, and the chances are that you will not 
hear it again. 
It is most uncanny sometimes to lie back in a cane chair near a 
Parrot, and hear it muttering to itself ; sometimes it would seem as 
if the bird had committed to memory quite a string of connected 
remarks, and the result is a weird self-communion, such as one 
sometimes hears as one passes human beings in their dotage. I have 
heard my Parrot muttering somewhat as follows : — “Well, I should 
say so; I don’t think there can be any doubt about it; it’s very 
foolish; I always have thought so,” and so on, sometimes for 
several minutes, and then its musings will be interrupted by one of 
its favourite sentences, such as “ How’s your grandmother ? ” 
I believe it is necessary to give a bird instruction when it is 
young, if you wish it to be a good talker. An old Parrot seems to 
add very few words or sentences to its list. 
If you notice that a bird ceases to repeat sentences which it has 
learned, yon must now and again prompt it, or they may be entirely 
forgotten ; perhaps this is not an unmixed evil, inasmuch as, when 
one knows this, one need never despair of reclaiming a profane 
