"A forster mother!"
them, one by one, on her back, and to fly with them to her cage. Here she established the little family, never entering the cage except for the purpose of attending to her young charge. The oddest part of the matter was that one of the parents survived, and Polly was seen to talk to her in the most absurd manner, mixing up her acquired vocabulary with that universal bird-language that seems to be common to all the feathered tribes, and plentifully interlarding her discourse with sundry profane expressions. At last the instinctive language conquered the human, and the two birds seemed to understand each other perfectly."
"Defended her from attacks."
A somewhat similar instance is recorded by Mr. Buxton, as quoted by Darwin in his "Descent of Man." In this case a parrot took care of a frost-bitten and crippled bird of a distinct species, cleansed her feathers, and defended her from the attacks of the other parrots which roamed freely about the garden. The tender regard, too, which birds of this class may have for one another is still further shown by the experiences of Wilson, who says, concerning the parakeet, that when, on shooting at a flock, he wounded a number of them, the others did not move off, but continued sweeping around their prostrate companions, manifesting so much sympathy and regard for the wounded as to completely disarm him.
"The two birds seemed to understand each other perfectly."
Parrots, too, occasionally display a decided sense of humour. A cockatoo which had noticed that a certain lady was afraid to go near its perch thought it a good joke, whenever the lady did approach, to set up its feathers and yell and screech in the most hideous way, as if it intended to attack her, doing all this evidently for no other reason than the pleasure of seeing her run away terrified.
There is, too, a strong suspicion of "a good joke," on the part of the parrot, in a story told in Lord Dundonald's autobiography. This particular parrot was on board ship, and had picked up a number of nautical phrases. The vessel was visited one day by some
