THE PARROT.
THE parrot is at once wise and amusing—a conjunction seldom observed in the human race. Under the general denomination of parrots are included several distinct species, varying from the great macaw to the tiny paroquet, having an exceeding wide range of distribution, being found in South America, Africa, and India, and the group of islands stretching down to Australia. Brilliant colouring is the most striking characteristic of the family, although there are some members, especially the parrot of Western Africa, that are almost Quaker-like in the quiet grey of their plumage. Next, perhaps, to their colour, their most notable characteristic is the extreme harshness of their voices, which are at once shriller, more discordant, and more agonising to the human ear than the sound uttered by any other of the animal creation, being approached only by the feminine voice when raised in anger. It is the more surprising that this should be so, since, as is evidenced by his nice powers of imitation, the parrot is endowed with a delicate ear, and there can be little doubt that the quality of his own voice, and of the voices of his wife, his family, and neighbours, must be a serious drawback to his happiness. Many parrots are gregarious in their habits, and the noise made by one of these flocks is prodigious. The shrill screams, the angry scoldings, and hoarse ejaculations create a din not altogether dissimilar to that which must have arisen from a city in ancient times when being sacked by a victorious soldiery. Among the smaller species, such as paroquets, every movement is marked by grace and agility. They are restless and playful, and very affectionate in their intercourse with each other. Attachment between husband and wife is very tender and lasting, and the death of one is generally followed speedily by that of its mate. We have less opportunity of observing the domestic relations of the larger parrots—the macaws and cockatoos—for few men are hardy enough to support the noise of more than one of these birds, and a scolding match between a cockatoo and his wife would be sufficiently discordant to empty even the largest house of all other inmates. It is singular that the tongue of this, the noisiest of birds, resembles more closely that of man than does the tongue of any other bird, being singularly thick and fleshy; it is doubtless due to this peculiarity that it is able to imitate the tones of the human voice so accurately as to defy discrimination.
“Indulging in a Variety of Strange Antics.”
“Indulging in a Variety of Strange Antics.”
“Indulging in a Variety of Strange Antics.”
While cheerfulness, sociability, and activity characterise the smaller parrots, the larger birds are marked by the striking variation of their moods. At times they will exhibit for hours an extreme restlessness, climbing up and down their perches, hanging head downwards, and indulging in a variety of strange antics. At others they will sit for long periods almost immovable, being distinguishable only from stuffed birds by the occasional droop over the eyeball of their white filmy eyelids. The mental characteristics of the larger parrots can hardly be termed agreeable, being marked by cynicism, malice, and a consciousness of superior wisdom. We do not say the assumption of superior wisdom, because no one can doubt its existence; and one of the problems which the human mind has failed to solve is what there is that the parrot doesn’t know. Diogenes in his tub could hardly have been wiser or more cynical than an elderly cockatoo; and a human being, when watching one of these birds, feels the same consciousness of youth and inexperience that David Copperfield always suffered from in the presence of the irreproachable Littimer, and that the traveller in Egypt experiences when gazing at the Sphinx. One cannot but feel that the parrot has, in addition to his inborn stock of wisdom, acquired a deep knowledge of human nature, as the result of years of careful study; that he has weighed man in the balance, and has come to the conclusion that he is altogether wanting. There is, too, the unpleasant feeling that the parrot has studied almost exclusively the worst side of human nature. The leer of his half-closed eye, the mocking laugh, the expression of malice in his tones, the hypocritical demeanour of friendliness until a finger approaches near enough to be seized—all this testifies sadly to the fact that the parrot has assimilated the worst qualities of man, while there is no sign that the better ones have made the slightest impression upon him. Of benevolence there is no trace, and, although capable of affection towards his mistress, he treats all other persons with equal nonchalance and contempt, although he may be cajoled into temporary familiarity by the offer of favourite food. The deep emphasis with which he mutters “Poor Polly,” shows the intense self-pity with which he views his forced habitation among such trivial and contemptible companions, and his regret at his own moral degeneration, the result of association with them. He knows that under happier circumstances he might have grown a respected patriarch in his native wilds, honoured, by those able to appreciate him, for his wisdom, and surrounded by respectful and admiring descendants, and it is the contrast between this and his present lot that has soured the bird’s temper and made him a cynic and a misanthrope.
Hardly less prominent a characteristic among parrots than cynicism is malice. The parrot delights openly and undisguisedly in giving annoyance. To seize the tail of a passing cat, or to awaken a sleeping dog with a sharp bite, affords him a delight over which he will laugh for hours. It is a pleasure to him to interrupt a quiet conversation with wild and sudden screams, and if by imitating a tradesman’s cry he can give a servant the trouble of going to the door, his malicious pleasure is unbounded.
The upper mandible of the beak of the parrot bears the same relation to that of other birds, as does the nose of the elephant to the similar feature among quadrupeds. Instead of being fixed to the skull, it is furnished with a separate bone, and is attached by a sort of natural hinge to it. He is thus able to open his mouth to a very wide extent, and to grasp a finger, a nut, or any other object with amazing force. In bestowing this faculty upon the parrot, Nature had an eye solely to the creature’s own benefit, and entirely disregarded the possible consequences to man. The foot, too, has an exceptional formation, giving the bird great power of grasp, enabling it at once to climb, to hang head downwards, or to hold its food while it devours it, with a power and facility almost unequalled among birds. It is not surprising that, with its power of imitating the human voice, and of modulating the natural harshness of its accents to the softest tones of that of a woman, with its human-like manner of taking its food, its close attention to everything that passes around it, and its evident wisdom, the parrot has from the oldest times been regarded with a certain superstitious respect by man. Ælian states that in India these birds were the favourite inmates of the palaces of the princes, and were regarded as objects of sacred reverence by the people. Among civilised nations this feeling has to some extent died out, but even now servant maids generally regard their mistresses’ parrots with dislike and aversion, being never quite sure that the parrot will not act the part of a tell-tale, and mention to its mistress that a shattered ornament was not really, as supposed, the work of the cat. The aversion is almost always mutual, a parrot very seldom admitting the slightest approach of familiarity on the part of a domestic, regarding her with the aversion which the dog manifests towards the tramp. Throughout the East the parrot has always been regarded as a bird possessed of mysterious knowledge and power, and frequently bears a prominent part in Arab legends. As a proof of the ingrained wickedness of the parrot’s nature, it need only be pointed out that it possesses a remarkable facility in acquiring bad language, and will pick up sailors’ oaths far more readily than it will acquire polite language. Upon the whole, although endowed with remarkable physical advantages, it must regretfully be owned that the parrot is a striking example of misapplied talent.