A TALL PARROT STORY.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1786, 6 September 1888, Page 4

A TALL PARROT STORY.

A well-known New Torker, whose pen and pencil have alike brought him money and reputation, has had an adventure which discounts by about ten thousand nine hundred and ninetynine the average conventional parrot story. He was fond of knocking about in out-of-tbe-way quarters on the Central American coast with a party of comrades to explore the wilderness. During a cruise of several months the entire ship’s company —and a merry crew they were —had devoted their odd hours to singing to a parrot. The sailors also had lost no opportunities and taught the bird all the seafaring lingo, and a few more or less elegant expletives besides. When the artist and his exploring companions had bidden the bird and the sailors good-bye they plunged into the heart of the tropical forest. After twenty-eight miles of mortal effort they reached their camping-place for the night. Just as the sun was going down they were startled to hear, in the primeval silence, a familiar voice calling down from the top of a tall palm : “ Avast there, yo, heave, ho!” It was the ship’s parrot. But before they could recover their startled senses the faithful bird, having flown ahead to prepare this unexpected treat for its chums of the voyage, flattered down to the top of a dead stump near by, and with a shrill call summoned thousands of the little green parroquets of the country. It is said eleven thousand of them were counted, as they circled round the great grey African oracle on the stump, and finally took their places on the ground in rank upon rank and row after row. The explorers looked on in dumb amaxement. When the feathered assemblage became quiet, the ship’s parrot burst into the familiar words of “ Nancy Lee,” and to the inextinguishable laughter of the travellers, the consternation of the rest of the tropical world, and the delight of the festive precentor, the whole eleven thousand parroquets, with one mighty burst of song, broke into “Nancy Lee.”