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Wairarapa Times-Age, 9 November 1939, Page 6

Not all parrots are talkative. A soldier from Burnham camp made a social call in Christchurch. Not expecting to slay long, ho casually dropped his hat beside his chair. When he picked it up he found that the family parrot—-a large white bird with a businesslike black beak —had reached out. pulled into its cage as much of the hat as would pass between the widely-separated vortical wires, and made a series of deep, irregular serrations in the brim. Dismayed at the prospect of appearing in public jn the evening with such an unusual hat. the soldier cut away the serrated part, so that the brim was wide on one side and very narrow on the other. It is probable that in carrying out this neat job he cherished a secret hope that his story would be believed in camp—the story of a parrot that, for all the reputed garrulity of its tribe, proved itself to be a silent worker.