11 
ORNITHOLOGICAL SELECTIONS AND CRITICISMS. 
By William Leslie Russell, Esq. 
In the following pages I propose continuing (from Vol. IV., p. 343) my 
“ selections and criticisms,” only premising, as before, that any corrections or 
omissions deemed expedient by the Editor, will not fail to meet my approbation. 
Among the numerous anecdotes related by authors, respecting that most 
amusing bird the Parrot, take the following quaintly-related one from Willughby’s 
Ornithology :— 
“ I shall not think much to set down a very pleasant Story, which Gesner 
saith was told him by a certain friend, of a Parrot, which fell out of King Henry 
VIII. his palace at Westminster, into the river of Thames that runs by, and 
then very seasonably remembring the words it had often heard some, whether in 
danger or in jest use, cried out amain— A boat , a boat, for twenty pound! A 
certain experienced boatman made thither presently, took up the bird, and restored 
it to the king, to whom he knew it belonged, hoping for as great a reward as the 
bird had promised. The king agreed with the boatman that he should have as 
the bird being asked should say: and the bird answered,— Give the knave a 
groat! ” 
Now I suppose no point is considered more questionable in the whole range of 
Ornithology, than that which inquires whether or not birds are, in any degree, 
endowed with the faculty of reason. A multiplication of well-attested anecdotes 
similar to the above, is by some considered to settle the dispute in the affirmative : 
though, for my own part, I think the conclusion has been hastily made, and that 
such instances have but little to do with the matter. No doubt Bluebeard’s 
bird had observed that the cry which it uttered on falling into the water, had 
been uttered by men in perillous circumstances. It would, therefore, either be a 
matter of observation , or else a cry which it had been accustomed to employ 
when in danger. A curious circumstance witnessed by myself will serve to 
illustrate this position. In the year 1830, happening one fine Summer’s evening 
to pass St. Catherine’s Docks, I heard a loud and sudden splash in the water, and 
immediately afterwards—singularly enough—cries of “ Fire! fire! go fetch the 
engines! fire ! fire! House a-fire ! I’m but a lodger! ” and so forth, which I soon 
found proceeded from a Parrot chained on deck of the very steamer from which a 
child had, a few moments before, fallen into the water. Now had there actually 
been fire in the case, the bird would at once have been supposed fully aware of the 
import of the phrase it uttered, and forthwith have been pronounced as great a 
