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Lesson RC 10-8 - Parrots
The Gray Parrot, whose home is Africa, Madagascar and New Guinea, is the prime
favorite of all whose hearts go out to the parrot, as they are the best
talkers. It is unfortunate that they usually live alone when they are captured,
for their nature is to live in flocks. Although they have single nests, in case
of an attack by an enemy too strong for a single pair, the whole clan unites in
battle array, and woe to an intruder. In the wild, they live entirely on fruits
and palm nuts. It is the males which talk the most but the females which talk
most distinctly.
Misdirected kindness is often the cause of their demise in captivity. Well-
meaning owners who do not understand the needs of their pet parrots do not
provide them with enough water, deny them the pieces of wood they love to
nibble, feed them on fats and table scraps which are fatal to their digestion,
and do not supply sharp grit in their rations. With proper care however, these
magnificent creatures live in houses for threescore years and more and are
sources for marvel and amusement.
Among the jolliest small members of the family are the Love Birds which come
from Africa, the East Indies or South America. These small parrots have a
stumpy body and a short tail and are common in many aviaries where parrots find
lodging. They got their name from the affection they display toward one another
and also from the fact that if one of a tame pair dies, the other generally
declines in health and sinks into an early grave - thought to be dead of
blighted affection. The truth is different, yet sad: the disease which has
killed the first is generally implanted in the second also. His little lease on
life beyond that of the mate is simply proof that the stronger of the two has
survived.
Even greater favorites than the lovebirds are the Budgerigars, though they are
sometimes called Love Birds also. Their long tails make them look quite large,
but in reality they have bodies no bigger than that of an average canary. They
are Australian birds, accustomed to a summer which occurs when winter is in the
northern hemisphere. The consequence is startling when they first come to North
America. They will nest in the winter around Christmas, and have their first
five young when snow lies three inches deep on the ground. Yet they usually
thrive, and are seldom sick or unhappy except on first nights out of the nest.
Another unusual parrot is the Hanging Parrot, so named because when it rests, it
has the quaint habit of suspending itself upside down and sleeping with its
head where we should expect its feet to be. The hanging parrots eat honey,
flower-buds and tender shoots but they also frequent pots set to catch
palm-juice. This has an intoxicating effect on the pilferers so that they are
often caught before they recover their senses. Even at the best of times, they
are sleepy little fellows and we must view their practices with suspicion.
Another species in this Parrot Family is the Kakapo or Owl-parrot. Like the
ostrich and the penguin, it has lost the power to fly. This ancient, flightless
bird is the world's rarest and strangest parrot. It is the only flightless and
nocturnal parrot, as well as being the heaviest in the world, weighing up to 8
pounds. It has lived in a New Zealand paradise where there were no dangerous
mammals until man arrived with the dog, the rat and the cat. Although this bird
retains wings, its great breastbone, to which the huge muscles of flight must
anchor, is wasted to half its proper size, and the Kakapo can never again be a
true flier. In quiet glades it may show itself by day, but usually it is driven
to feed by night, running up and down trees, foraging among the grass, never
returning to anything nearer true flight than a flop downward from bough to
bough or from tree to ground. Pigs and dogs and other animals, to say nothing
of human gourmands, have eaten the greater part of the myriads which once
roamed in company with the giant moa. Unless man saves them, the remaining 62
errant birds of this species will perish utterly within a generation.
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