TALKING PARROTS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume VII, Issue 1998, 23 May 1885, Page 2

TALKING PARROTS.

Stories about parrots are moMiid more wonderful in proportion to their want of authenticity. What can b& finer than the following 1 1t has the pungency of a Berwick vignette.. A young coup)e went away frpni home for spine weeks, ,and on their return the parrot'repeated several times, ' 'Let's have another bottle; there's no one hereto know," then proce£dJng>to sound the appropriate ."plop" and gurgle. This is true. How the servants must .have loved ,thecleverbird 1',.,.-. » u t.; ,;Here is another, also strictly ,iitrue and •uriembellished- "Mr Blank''of Black, in Yorkshire, had a fever about ChrAfmas time, and his parrot was taken from the ,dining-room to the kitchen .for greater quiet,- It remained thefe;se>eral weeks, during-which it-stole the raisins intended for a plum pudding. The "cook in anger threw some hot grease, at it, ;; and scalded its head. When Mr.Blank'.jjot better the parrot's' cage was again. Mr Blank, with a. newly-Bhaved head, approached. The parrot turned one eye upon him, andsaid slowly, n ;)tau baldheaded ruffian! So you .stole-W cook's plums!

Dr Greene describes a couple of festiveAmazons, who used to converse with each other ,in Portuguese/. regularly answered each other, and occasionally sang and laughed aloud,' so; that they were taken for human beings'by persons who had not seen them.".

, .A very small, grey,- in a-London house, goes through along perfofmkiico, in which speaking only plays a secondary part; but when he is put into a'closed coal-box he imitates a postman's knodk'/ari'd when you say " Who's there?":lier6pließ'ijuiteclearly, "Open the door for'Pplly! Wjfl : A cockatoo never asked for potatoes except when dinner was on the table, and never said, •' Oh, you're a beauty" <&ept to a child. ■ . Jp There may have been seme appropriateness in themind of DeiinStanley's parrot ■on a" memorable occasion While the lamented dean was a canon at Canterbury, a gentleman who was invited to breakfast found all the servants assembled in the garden gazing up at;a kburnunl in which the parrot was at JMCJhioment the canon came 0ut.,,, The : parrob't looked down at him, and. said in-a-low- -but distinct voice, exactly liko Stanley's "Let us pray!" He was captured by the help of a fishing-rod. [ A grey parrot was stationed in ike nursery, where his greatest delight vsosee the baby bathed. An infant complaint seized the child, and the parrot was removed to the kitchen. There, after a time, he set up a terrible cry. "The baby! The dear baby I" All the family rushed down, to find the parrot in tho wildest excitement, watching the roasting of a sucking pig. Dr Rubs tells of a grey which was teased by a fat Major, whom he knew well, to climb a stick. "Up on the stick, Polly; up on the stick 1" The parrot suddenly laughed loudly, and said, "Up with you on the stick,, Major !"- I Saturday Review.