Feathered Actors and their Training.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 22 May 1914, Page 8

Feathered Actors and their Training.

BIRDS WHO EARN SALARIES OF

CA BT.NET MINTSTEKS

A ROTHSCHILD'S HOBBY

The parrot in -"Oh, Oh, Delphine!" whose timely squawking is duly rewurded with a mess of parrot food, is not the only one of his tribe who has figured on the stage. . In 1911 three remarkable parrots appeared a,t the London Hippodrome, in a quaint act. On.} of them was an export typist who stood gravely cm one claw before»an ordinary typewriter, and on the instructions of his trailer tapped out intelligible messages with the aid of the other claw and his beak. His two comrades 'were tightrope exponents. While one worked a miniature bkVcle across a wire, the other, perched on a pendulum suspended from the machine, cheered the pedaller on with occasional screeches. What was described as the cleverest bird in the world appeared at the Alhambra in 1906. v It was a parrot in Herr Albert Perzina's world-famous collection of trained animals. Laura was her name— Laura from Africa. Her plumage was bright green, her exprassion one of eerie wisdom, and her voice when she sang was described as "like the twanging of a loose banjo string." "Laura had a vocabulary of over 200 German words, and could sing the old German folk-song beginning: "Koramt em Vogel geflogen, Let/.t :sich nicder auf mem fusz"—spirited verses to the effect that anyene who wishes to be- a soldier must carry a musket and load it with powder and ball. Laura took years to train, and was ultimately purchased from., her owner for a very substantial sum by Baron Alfred de Rothschild, who made a hobby o-f collecting" trained birds and animals. had to have; geese. In addition to appearances on the "l<v;Hiu:ate" and on the " halls," feathered actors have even graced Grand Opera. In Humperdinck's "K'onigskinder" ("The Goose Girl"), .which was produced at Covent Garden in' 1911, a flock of geese appeared. The stage directors were aware Ihrct the little goose girl in , thii story tended a flock of geese, but itl was only later that they discovered that the stage-directions actually stipulated that a flock of real geese should "walk on." Out of 40 birds which it was arigir.ally intended to put on the boards only 1.2 were found to have a genuine.aptitude for Grand Opera. A Mttle kindness and a lot of barley and boiled maize turned the dozen intc happy, fat, and really good actors. Thfty came out trumps in the final dress rehearsal, though a little scared' at first hy the vigour of the orchestra. On the first night when they were driven across the stage in the second act by Mme. Gura-Hummel, the Goose Girl, and grouped themselves around her ■at the city gates as the clock struck twelve, they won th« praise of all the critics. Remarkable salaries are earned by bird actors*; a famous "troupe" of parrots • can command anything from £50 to £.80 a week.