444
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-
