BED AND BLUE MACAW. 
73 
this old savage never abated one atom of his hatred for every one 
that went near him, and he had ultimately to he poisoned.” 
We can heartily endorse the following recommendation by the same 
author: — “Never keep a Macaw in a cage, because, if you do, his 
gorgeous tail will assuredly be spoiled, and the soiled condition of the 
cage will inevitably become a nuisance, no matter how great may be 
the attention bestowed upon its frequent cleansing.” 
If the owner has not an aviary of sufficient extent and strength to 
permit of his placing his Macaw in it, and the bird itself is not suf- 
ficiently tame to admit of allowing it its freedom, he had better have 
it fastened by one leg to a stand, by means of a light steel chain: 
the latter should be attached by means of a ring of sufficient size to 
admit of its sliding freely up and down to an upright of some strong 
wood, at the upper extremity of which should be placed a cross bar, 
the whole taking the shape of the capital letter T; the seed and water 
tins should be placed at either end of the horizontal bar, and if a 
well-sanded tray be placed at the bottom of the upright, very little 
dirt will be made, and the bird be kept in a clean and comfortable 
condition. 
A Macaw thus kept soon becomes very tame, and rarely attempts 
to bite: as some of these birds, however, are treacherous in their 
conduct towards children, whom too many have reason to consider 
their natural enemies, it is as well to caution the young folk against 
approaching them too nearly. 
We have seen tame Macaws as quiet and gentle as any bird can 
possibly be, and so far from being noisy their voice was very seldom 
heard, and when utterance was occasionally given to a squeak, rather 
than a shriek, the note was far from being as shrill and disagreeable 
as that of the Rosy Cockatoo, for instance, or even the Alexandrine 
Parrakeet; but no reliable inferences can be drawn from the disposition 
of individual birds, for they vary in temper, not to say character, as 
much as men do. _ 
The extreme beauty of a flight of these grand birds is well described 
in the following extract from Anson’s Voyage, page 218: writing of a 
waterfall in the Island of Quibo,. he says, “While we were observing 
it, there came in sight a prodigious flight of Macaws: which hovering 
over the spot, and often wheeling and playing on the wing about it, 
afforded a most brilliant appearance, by the glittering of the sun on 
their variegated plumage: so that some of the spectators cannot refrain 
from a kind of transport, when they recount the complicated beauties 
which occurred in this extraordinary waterfall.” 
It is curious that Latham, when writing of this bird, should fall 
G 
II. 
