144 
A NATURALIST ON 7 HE PROWL. 
he grows cheerful and soon sets out on a tour of inspection. 
He is wonderfully interested in my watch-chain, and more 
so in the buttons of my coat. He has not succeeded in 
getting them off yet, but I can see that he does not mean 
to be beaten. Nine-tenths of the pleasure of a parrot’s 
life lies in the use and misuse of its beak, which is a 
wonderful instrument, quite unlike the beak of any other 
bird. The upper part is not firmly dovetailed into the 
skull, but joined by a kind of hinge, on which it moves 
up and down a little, so that the points of the upper and 
lower parts play freely against each other and can do very 
neat work in the way of shelling peas, or husking grains 
of rice. The muscular and sensitive tongue works like a 
finger, holding the grain in its place, or turning it round, 
as the operation goes on. With such artistic apparatus 
feeding becomes an art, and a parrot’s meals take up half 
the day. He will not bolt his food like a gross crow, to 
whom fresh meat and putrid fish, dead rats and hens’ eggs 
all come alike, but tastes every morsel, and eats one part 
and throws away ten. 
Peter’s special luxury is bread and butter, and he eats 
the butter and throws away the bread. He is fond of rice 
too, and puddings and dry grain and nuts and buttons and 
