PETER AND HIS RELATIONS . 
14 7 
fanciers belong to this race. In its native state it lives a 
joyous and social life, tasting every good thing in garden 
and field while the day lasts, and at sunset resorting to the 
club, where hundreds of its kind meet to pass the night in 
company. Then there is screaming and shrieking indescrib- 
able. Under adversity it nurses malice and becomes im- 
placable. Yoti may say “Pretty Polly” in your gentlest 
tone and chirrup winningly, but she will just stiffen a little, 
and her eyes will grow all white, and you had better not 
put your finger too near the bars of her cage. Yet Polly 
can love as well as hate if you only give her as much 
reason. 
She is an apt pupil too, and can learn to speak so 
plainly that, if somebody tells you what she is saying, you 
can make it out quite well. Thomas Atkins often whiles 
away the monotony of barrack life in the tuition of parrots, 
and when you hear his pupils talk you almost fancy they 
are quoting from the works of Rudyard Kipling. A friend 
of mine, who wanted very much to take an educated parrot 
home with him, went to the Soldiers’ Industrial Exhibition 
at Poona, where he saw a handsome bird for sale, with a 
sheet of foolscap hanging from its cage, in which were 
detailed all the pretty things it could say. Standing near 
L 2 
