FESTIVE AMAZON PABBOT. 
95 
Selby declares that “It is docile, and easily tamed, and, being of 
an imitative disposition, readily learns to pronounce words and sentences 
with great clearness and precision”, which is not at all our experience 
with the species. 
On the other hand, as all these birds differ considerably in capacity 
and disposition, it is quite likely that an odd specimen, now and again, 
may be met with that has learned to speak as well and as clearly, as 
the rest of its compatriots are backward in this respect. 
Among the palm groves of its native land, the Amazon feeds luxu- 
riously on fruit, but in captivity is content with a more meagre fare 
of seed — seeds of various kinds, such as hemp, for which it always shows 
a predilection, canary seed, maize, and nuts of every description, from 
the cob-nut of our hedgerows, to the cocoa-nut of its native land; nor 
does it despise such humble fare as monkey-nuts, and in carrots and 
beet seems to find a substitute for the oranges and bananas of the 
tropics. 
These birds soon become very tame and domesticated, and if their 
owner resides in the country, may be permitted to wander at will 
about the grounds, whence they will return to the house for their 
food: it is as well, however, not to permit them to ramble far when 
there is ripe fruit to be picked up in the neighbourhood, as their 
frugivorous propensities are apt under such circumstances to exert 
themselves with a degree of intensity that cannot fail to prove injurious 
to the gardener: at other times they may have full liberty, which we 
have never known them abuse by straying away altogether from their 
home. 
It is curious that a pair of these birds will sometimes converse with 
each other in their acquired language, but such is nevertheless the 
fact.' Some years ago a friend of ours had a pair of Amazons, though 
we cannot now say to what particular species they belonged, that used 
to talk to each other in Portuguese, which they had no doubt learned 
before their importation into this country. The effect was decidedly 
peculiar, sitting one in a pear-tree in the garden, and the other in a 
clump of hawthorn near the dining-room window, they regularly answered 
each other, and occasionally sang and laughed aloud, so that they were 
often taken for human beings by persons who had not seen them, and 
only heard the sound of their voices in the garden. What they were 
talking about, we regret we cannot say, as we are not acquainted with 
the language in which their conversation was carried on. 
