Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 1.djvu/452

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NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. I. JUNE 4, 98,

me as I write sits, as is his wont, outside his cage (for he happens at present to be a parrot), on the topmost wires near the brazen vase, which he nas apparently selected as the most slippery and uncomfortable place, and he eyes me inquisitively, as if he had some inkling of my present purpose. The fact is that my wife, to whom I have been discoursing on the monumental importance of the ' H. E. D.,' is nervous lest, when broach- ing the letter P, the dictionary should, with- out demur, explain the term " parrot-like " as applicable to sounds and syllables repeated by rote, " as a parrot talks, indiscriminately," and I hold a brief on behalf of my feathered client. The following is a rough draft of my case.

The ancients, as we know, called all foreigners, indifferently, barbarians (bar-bar, confused sounds), from regarding their utterances as little better than babble, and yet, as Prof. Max Miiller reminded us in his ' Science of Language.' those very barbarians became the first linguists and scholars. The Kussians, time out of mind, have dubbed the Germans niemtsi, or " dummies," a name still bestowed by the peasants on all European strangers. But just as the terms " dumb as a fish " and " blind as a mole " arose from fallacies now exploded, so I hold that the expression "parrot -like" as applied to human talk is a misnomer, and that some parrots, at any rate, when they imitate cer- tain sounds, generally attach a distinct mean- ing of their own to them, though perhaps that meaning may be, and often is, quite different from the ordinary one. But do not men misapply words in much the same way ? The name of " dog " (man's noble and intrepid friend) is cast at some sneaking cur of the genus homo, and that of "goose" (a most intelligent fowl) at any smiling, simpering idiot in pants or petticoats. Of course parrots will often rattle off a string of noisy, disagree- able sounds and cries from their repertory without rhyme or reason ; but what are we to say to the music-hall, not musical, public which delightedly yells in the frantic chorus to such songs as 'Slap-Bang' or 'Tommy, make Koom for your Uncle,' which we some of us heard in our youth ? However, parrots, like men, if they sometimes joke, must some- times be in earnest. Be it remembered that birds in captivity use a foreign language acquired sounds. Doubtless in their own haunts they understand their own cries and vernacular well enough, and I submit that the term "parrot-like," in its present dis- paraging sense, constitutes a libel, or at least an unmerited reflection, on this intelligent

bird. It is as unmanly to imprison a bird as it is a fellow-creature, and then heap abuse on his head. In support of my contention that parrots talk and telegraph intelligently, I adduce the following particulars. Our grey parrot for years generally " assisted " at our meals, and if not promptly supplied with some of the current eatables or drinkables never failed to draw attention to the neglect by three smart raps with his beak on the side of his cage, at the same time crying in Kuss, "How-do-do, popka?" and bobbing up and down like a cockatoo or roadside mendicant until his needs were satisfied. This insistence became a nuisance, for one man's meat (such asparsley)is another bird's poison, and stuffing, excellent in roast goose, is bad for parrots, so that we had our pet consigned at mealtimes to a back room communicating with our suite (N.B., lodgings at St. Petersburg are on flats). Now mark what followed. During the first week or two the bird, on hearing afar the clatter of cups or plates, would hammer away until his poor nose must have felt quite sore, dropping, however, the polite bowing and "how-do-doing" (for we watched him through a chink). But finding his efforts painfully fruitless (and fruit, by the way, is a vast favourite with him), he soon, like a retired table-turner or postman, abandoned his rapping practices, and would sit aloof in moody meditation, but not fancy free, for he much fancied some of the "grub" being eaten. One day we heard an awful yelping and whimpering from the further room, and, rushing in, found that our little pug had put his nose too near the open cage-door, in search of casual fragments, and had been sharply punished by the "beak" for his would-be poaching. Poor puggy was caught up by his pitying mistress and fondled and fed, whilst poll, who is a very jealous fellow, looked glumly on. Weeks (I think, months) passed away, and the incident of the tweaked nozzle was well-nigh forgotten, when one fine (or it may have been rainy) morning at breakfast exactly the same yelps and whim- pering resounded from the distant room. We again ran to succour and comfort the mis- guided pup, but, after carefully searching and hunting in every possible and impossible nook and corner, there was not the ghost of a dog there. Meanwhile, poll, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, sat bowing and rapping and saluting as of yore. Presently the maid, who had been away to market more than an hour, returned with the dog at her heels, and assured us that he had been with her all the time. The case was now perfectly clear. Poll, as he sat cogitating in banish-