Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 2).djvu/119

 quietly round the banks of a small lake in which gold fish are sporting themselves. In our illustration Jack, the marmozet, is to be seen sunning himself upon his master's shoulder.

We are now on our way to the Zoo, as Mr. Marks has promised to spend the remainder of the afternoon with me at a spot where he probably knows every bird in the place, and where many of them know him. As soon as we arrived there the artist took me into one of the houses where is a beautiful mynah, from Northern India. It seems that this bird has been here since 1883. Some time ago the keeper had a bad cough, and found that the bird imitated him. This gave him the idea of teaching it to talk; it will now say almost anything. A good story is told of an old gentleman who went up to the bird, and, quite innocently, said, "What a pretty bird!" "I should think I was," it replied. "Ha, ha!" laughed the old man. "Ha, ha!" laughed the bird in response, and there were the two laughing at one another for quite five minutes. This bird has been painted twice by Mr. Marks, to whom we are indebted for the accompanying sketch and verses.

Then Mr. Marks proceeded to point out his favourites; the vultures just getting their summer plumage, the cockatoos and parrots; and he showed me nearly all the parrots that had posed as models for his great picture in this year's Royal Academy, the "Select Committee," and which we reproduce with his permission as the frontispiece of this number. The chairman of the committee, by a long way the most important looking bird, has a beautiful blue plumage; and the artist spent some two or three months painting it. Then the military macaw, so called because of its tuft, is there, and at the word of command will bite his leg, and if you get too near will pull off your cap. Inside the parrot house is a glorious clock-bird, with its tail like a pendulum; the blue-eyed cockatoo which is in the picture, and the little green parrakeet which says, "Pretty Poll! steady!" Then here is a big grey parrot, the best talker of all, but who was so crushed by the continual noise of the others that she never speaks now.

The two cockatoos in white are familiar friends of the artist. Mr. Marks kneels