68 
HINTS ON CAGE-BIRDS. 
talk are already educated when imported into this country, unless I 
am much mistaken.* 
Among Parrots only the most talented can be taught to repeat 
or whistle songs and tunes. I have spent months in trying to teach 
my bird to whistle the tunc of “ The Cure,” but it never succeeded 
in getting even one phrase perfect ; yet it can whistle the musical 
scale, and often amuses itself by extemporising iu a truly marvellous 
manner. On the other hand, as 1 have stated elsewhere, the late 
Mr. J. Abrahams taught a blue-fronted Amazon to sing the whole 
of the words of two songs, and whistle a third. I heard the bird 
myself one day when I called upon Mr. Abrahams. 
I)r. Russ says that the same process must be gone through in 
teaching a bird to whistle a tune as in teaching it to talk, but Mr. 
Abrahams told mo that this was a great mistake; he taught his 
Amazon one song at a time, it is true, but ho repeated the whole 
song through at intervals day after day until the bird had it perfect. 
He told me that at first the chaotic jumble of words and notes 
which the Parrot repeated seemed hopeless, hut gradually they 
seemed to sort themselves until they wore all in order. 
When you come to think of it, there is uo reason why a Parrot 
should be less capable of learning a tune or a song with words than 
a Bullfinch or a Canary; yet, if Dr. Russ’ plan were generally 
applied, these birds would have to be taught their songs note by 
note. I am afraid the good doctor was so busy studying the more 
scientific -details of aviculture, that he never had leisure to put his 
views as to the correct method of instructing talking and whistling 
birds to a practical test. 
Birds are very like children, and must be taught much in the 
same way. A child does not learn a song one word at a time, but 
one verso at a time; in this respect Mi - . Abrahams’ Parrot was 
.perhaps more clever, in one respect, than a child, for he acquired 
a whole song straight away ; yet I do not donbt'that ho was longer 
over his lesson than any sharp child would be. 
In teaching a Bullfinch to pipe, you must have a nestling. I 
am often asked by owners of adult Bullfinches how they can be 
trained to whistle a tune. They cannot. The only tune a trapjied 
Bullfinch will ever learn is the quaint little jew’s-liarp performance 
taught it by its father. 
Take your Bullfinches when about eight days old, and bring them 
up by hand, feeding them upon sweet biscuit ground to powder in a 
coffee-mill, preserved yolk of egg, and selected ants’ eggs (if you can 
get living ants’ eggs it will be better) ; to these ingredients yon 
may add blight (green fly) from roses. Buy a bird-organ, and after 
feeding the young birds, play always the same tune to them upon the 
organ. When the young cocks begin to sing, instead of their 
wild song they will have acquired the tune played to them. 
* Sineo the publication of this opinion in The Feathered II arid, a gentleman 
has written to say that, he and his w ife have been perfectly successful in teach- 
ing a Roseate Cockatoo to talk ; such success, however, must be very unusual. 
