Chapter 1 - Parrot-Keeping In The Past

As I anticipated, it has proved none too easy to discover sufficient material for a chapter on the history of parrot-keeping, but I hope it will be thought that the result justifies the search. Not a great deal was written about parrot-keeping in ancient times, and although in certain cases the information is repetitive, it is contradictory in others, so I have thought it best to give the quotations in full.

One thing that must be pointed out at once is that the Ancients knew of no difference between parrots and parakeets, so by them all psittacoses birds were simply classed together as "parrots".

From time immemorial any bird that could "talk" has charmed and mystified the human race, so it is not surprising to learn that in India, particularly among the Brahmins, "parrots" from the earliest times were not eaten but were held sacred simply because they could imitate the speech of human beings. This same facility fascinated the great ladies of ancient Rome, where talking "parrots" were highly prized luxuries, their price often exceeding that of a slave, and were frequently housed in magnificent cages made of ivory, tortoiseshell and silver.

The following interesting excerpt is from Dr. Russ's Die Fremdlandischen Stubenvogel, Parrot vol. Ill:

The old Egyptians did not know the parrots and in their hieroglyphics we find no sign or any indication of them. In like case were the Israelites, at any rate research shows that the name of Parrot is never once mentioned in the Bible. In the time of Alexander the Great they were introduced into Greece, for we are told, though there is some doubt about the correctness of this statement, that one of his retinue brought with him from India a species of parrot, which he found was commonly kept tame among the natives there. This species, according to Wagler, was the Psittacus eupatrius of Linnaeus, now popularly known as the Large Alexandrine Parrakeet. As Aristotle (see Sundervall, Thierarten des Aristoteles (Stockholm 1863) and Lenz Zoologie der alten Grierhen und Romer (Gotha 1856)) gives such a very short description of the parrots, we may assume that he had but very rarely seen one, for otherwise such a painstaking author as he would have given a more satisfactory account. It was the Ring-necked Parrakeet (P. torquata, Bodd) also commonly nowadays known as the Small Alexandrine, which the Romans knew, for this species was discovered in farthest Syria by Diodorus Siculus, a contemporary of Julius Caesar and Augustus and accurately described by Pliny, the first real description of a parrot we have. Martial tells us that they were kept in costly cages of silver, ebony and tortoiseshell, and were taught to speak human words, especially the name of Caesar. For their training special teachers were appointed and the price of a well-trained bird often exceeded that of a slave.

KEA

The New Zealand Kea has become notorious because it is said to have taken to killing sheep in order to eat their fat. Its normal diet consists of roots which it digs up with it's curiously shaped beak, and it is a bird of great intelligence.

On this the stern censor, Marcus Portius Cato, thus chides them: "O ye Senators! O unhappy Rome! What does this portend? On what evil times we have fallen when we see our wives nursing puppy dogs on their laps and our men carrying parrots in their hands!" In how great esteem were these birds then held, is shown by the fact that the poet Ovid wrote an elegy (. . . Psittacus, Eois imitatrix ales arboris, Occidit) on Corinna's dead parrot, while later on Statius glorified another in a similar way. Then, as now, only the young were selected for instruction. So we learn from Apuleius and we may assume that the frequently mentioned Ringneck -was the only species known in ancient days. Kiranides describes one of these, but one in which the ring was lacking. Aelian tells us that in India there were many parrots, which were held sacred by the Brahmins, because they could imitate human speech, and which were therefore neither killed nor captured by the Indians. By the time of the Emperor Nero parrots had been discovered ("bei Tergedum") on the Nile and were probably afterwards imported in gradually increasing numbers from Africa into Europe, as has been the case with many of our domestic animals and birds, which originally came from foreign parts. The notorious glutton the Emperor Heliogabalus, Aelius Lampridius relates, had dressed parrot heads served at his banquets and even fed his lions on parrots and peacocks. From this it is clear that these birds must have been then imported in vast numbers.

Turner, one of the earliest English writers on birds, gave in his Historia Avium, written in 1544, Pliny's interesting account as to the somewhat drastic, not to say brutal method of teaching parrots to speak in ancient Rome. The following quotation is taken from Turner on Birds by A. N. Evans, published about 1903:

Beyond all, Psittaci repeat men's words, and even talk connectedly. India sends this bird, which they call Psittace, with the whole body green marked only by a scarlet ring upon the nape. It will pronounce "Hail Emperor" and any words it hears; it is especially sportive after wine. The hardness of the head is the same as of the beak, and when the bird is being taught to speak, it is beaten with an iron rod, else it feels not the strokes. When it flies down it receives its weight upon its beak, and supports itself thereon; and thus lightens itself to remedy the weakness of its feet.

As to the unfortunate bird having to stand on its head in order to remedy the weakness of its feet, Pliny seems to have thought this quite a normal procedure. For myself, however, I can only suppose that it was either suffering from concussion through having been hit on the head with an iron rod; or else, having been "especially sportive after wine", the poor thing had reached the stage where it was too drunk to stand up properly!

From the above quotation one would gather that the only "parrots" known to Europeans in ancient days were the Alexandrine (Psittacula nipalensis) and the Ring neck Parakeet (Psittacula torquata). The following quotation from Alfred Newton's A Dictionary of Birds shows, however, that the Plum head {psittacula cyanocephala) was also known in those days, and, as will be seen, was quite recognizably described by the Greek physician and historian Ctesias writing in the fifth century B.C. He describes the bird, which could "speak the Indian language", as blue-green with a purple face and a black beard—quite unmistakably a Plum head or a Blossom head. Before giving the actual quotation I should perhaps mention that the Ring neck Parakeet is practically unique in one respect, namely, that there is both an Indian and an African race of this same bird, both of which are almost identical in appearance although they inhabit continents, which are thousands of miles apart:

Aristotle is commonly supposed to be the first author to mention a parrot, but this is an error, for nearly a century earlier Ctesias (Greek physician and historian, fifth century B.C.) in his Indica (Chap. 3), under the name of Bittacus so neatly described a bird which could speak an "Indian" language—naturally as he seems to have thought —or Greek—if it had been taught to do so—about as big as a sparrow-hawk (Hierax) with a purple face and a black beard, otherwise blue-green (cyaneus) and vermilion in colour, so that there cannot be much risk in declaring that he must have had before him a male example of what is most commonly known as the Blossom-headed Parrakeet, and to ornithologists as Palceomis cyancephalus, an inhabitant of many parts of India.

After Ctesias comes Aristotle's Psittace, which Sunder-vall supposes him to have described from hearsay, but this matters little for there can be no doubt that the Indian conquests of Alexander were the means of making the parrot better known in Europe, and it is in reference to this fact that another eastern species of Palaeornis now bears the name of P. alexandri, though from the localities it inhabits it could not have had anything to do with the Macedonian king. That Africa had parrots does not seem to have been discovered by the ancients till long after, as Pliny tells us (vi. 29) that they were first met with by explorers employed by Nero beyond the limits of Upper Egypt. These birds, highly prized from the first, reprobated by the Moralist, and celebrated by more than one classical poet, as time went on were brought in great numbers to Rome and ministered in various ways to the luxury of the age. Not only were they lodged in cages of tortoiseshell and ivory, with silver wires, but they were professedly esteemed as delicacies for the table, and one emperor is said to have fed his lions on them.

W. T. Greene, author of a celebrated book on parrots, was of the opinion that the African Grey Parrot was known in very ancient times, and personally I should say he was right. For one thing that struck me as curious in reading these ancient accounts of parrot-keeping was that Plum-heads, Alexandrines and Ring necks in those days should have been so highly esteemed as talkers. Personally I should not have called any of the three at all talented in that direction, in fact I don't think I have ever heard of a talking Plum head. Ring necks trained by the natives are extremely clever at doing various tricks such as firing a miniature cannon and picking out a particular card from a pack, and both they and Alexandrines are readily tamed and make charming pets, but in my experience they seldom learn to say more than a word or two. African Grey Parrots, on the other hand, are of course famous as the most talented of all talking birds.

I quote the following from W. T. Greene's The Grey Parrot published in 1893:
It is highly probable that the Grey Parrot was known to the Jews in the time of Solomon, whose ships, in conjunction with those of Hiram, passed, there is little doubt, between the Pillars of Hercules, and coasting southwards found the famous Ophir on that portion of the Dark Continent at present known by the general name of Guinea, whence, after an interval of three years, they returned home bringing with them among other curiosities "apes and peacocks" or parrots, as most modern commentators translate the Hebrew word Sukeyim.

Although the Ancients may have imported peacocks from their native Asia just as they had imported Indian parrakeets also from the East, it seems to me complete nonsense to say that an expedition into Africa would return home "bringing with them among other curiosities apes and peacocks". I feel sure Greene was right and that they were apes and parrots, Greys no doubt among them, since, as I have said, peacocks do not come from Africa at all.

Incidentally I have never been able to understand why even the most decadent and luxury-loving of Roman emperors should have wanted to feed his lions on apes and peacocks or even apes and parrots, which is exactly on a par with sending out costly expeditions to America to bring home live humming-birds for a pet cat to regale itself upon. Apes and parrots must have been a very tricky proposition indeed to bring back alive from Africa to Rome—and then to use them simply as fodder for lions . . .! Frankly it is a story I have never been able to accept because, even if the supply of Christians ran out, I should have thought there would always have been plenty of horseflesh available! I should imagine that the truth of the matter is that the mortality among the newly-imported apes and parrots was extremely high and their corpses were fed to the lions instead of being thrown away or burnt.

Bird-keeping in ancient Rome was not always aviculture in the sense that we know it. For instance Dr. Russ, rather over-optimistically I think, called Alexander Severus (successor to Heliogabalus): "A noteworthy bird-fancier to our ideas, a true animal lover in the best sense of the words, who kept dogs, cats and other four-footed pets, as well as birds, the latter in great numbers, for instance his collection of doves numbered 20,000 head. All his birds were most carefully kept and tended for the sole purpose of facilitating the observation of their life-habits and ways."

While I have no wish to appear unduly cynical or to malign Alexander Severus, I cannot help feeling that he could have got quite an insight into the habits and ways of doves without having to keep 20,000 of them for observation purposes! I am afraid suspicious culinary smells intrude themselves, and consequently even the fact that the birds were most carefully kept and tended, has a sinister ring.
The Romans had their ornithons (bird houses) in which thousands of blackbirds and thrushes were given "the berries of the lentisk, the myrtle, and the ivy, and whatever in short would improve the flavor of their flesh".

Could it be, I wonder, that after he had observed their life-habits and ways Alexander sat down to cogitate about them after a satisfying dinner of pigeon or dove pie? Personally I have little doubt he did, but I hope he didn't go as far as Lucullus (after whom so many restaurants have been named) who "had an aviary built in his dining-hall so that when the dishes of cooked birds were brought in at his banquets he could, at the same time, watch the living ones and enjoy their colours, movements and gambols"— to my mind a most revolting idea!

In the hey-day of ancient Rome the favorite spectacle of arena combats between various wild beasts necessitated sending trapping expeditions throughout the then known world to catch them and bring them back alive, and I think it is reasonable to suppose that any birds that took their fancy, such as parrots and parakeets, would have been brought back as well.

Eventually, however, came the decline and fall of Rome and with it the cessation of this vast trade in foreign livestock which had always, no doubt, been mainly concerned with beasts and only incidentally with birds.

After that very little information seems to be available until the Middle Ages when parrots were gradually becoming known throughout Europe, although they were only to be found in noble households or those of the very wealthy. This, of course, was the time of the Crusades, and we are told that the ladies of the period "had their parrots, their 'mignons' with which to console and amuse themselves in their loneliness while their knights were away at the wars; and we hear also of parrots even in the cloister, where they would seem quite out of place, even if they could babble bits of the Bible and the prayers."

There followed at about the time of the Renaissance a tremendous vogue for the keeping of parrots and other exotic birds whose acquisition had been made possible by navigational improvements resulting in ever more distant and daring voyages of discovery.

I cannot do better than give the following quotations, which afford a graphic and rather fascinating glimpse of the general zoological and aviculture state of affairs in those very early times. It will be noticed that here for the first time there is mention, among the birds brought home by Christopher Columbus, of macaws complete with their inevitable adjectives of "large" and "gaudy":
Among the most valuable acquisitions, the results of his voyage, which Columbus brought home were some of the large gaudy Macaws. The rich merchants of Augsburg of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were accustomed to keep numerous Parrots and other foreign birds in their mansions, and at about the same period, so Piccolimini writes, in Vienna so many Parrots and other birds, both native and foreign, were kept either in the rooms or summer-houses, that when walking through the streets, one could imagine oneself in the woods, so lusty were their songs and calls. Very shortly after this came the Canary ... to rapidly spread through Europe and more particularly Germany. Finally, with the commencement of the seventeenth century began, first in Portuguese ships, the importation from Senegal of the small African birds, which are to-day everywhere known and loved under the name of "Ornamental Finches"! Very shortly the Spaniards, French and Dutch got the chief part of this trade, which was already by the middle of the same century a most flourishing one, and later the English, Germans, Americans and others took their share of it, till the very extensive bird market of to-day was established           

It is fairly certain that in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries birds were imported into Europe by the Venetians and Portuguese, in whose hands the trade with the Indies then was. We know that the last-named in the year 1498 rounded the Cape of Good Hope and eventually possessed themselves of a great part of India and the Island of Ceylon, whence they brought to Europe Indian Parrots, which they found already tamed by the natives of that country. The same was the case when the Spaniards discovered America; they also found the aborigines keeping tame Parrots. When Columbus made his solemn entry into Seville on his return from his first expedition, he had with him, among other valuables, some living Parrots. So also the English on their voyages to the New World brought home with them—first in 1504—live Parrots, which were at first considered great curiosities in that country. Later on, however, as the results of keen search, they were brought to Europe from America in larger numbers, and among them even the big Macaws were included, birds which were at that time thought fit to grace only princely houses.

A very ardent early aviculturist who lived during the reign of King Louis XVI of France was the Due de Nivernais, and I think it is to Madame de Sabran, who frequently stayed with him, that we are indebted for a description, which is too long to quote in full here, interesting as it is.

The Duke had a fine chateau with magnificent views at St. Ouen, just outside Paris, and apparently he was able to realise what has to remain a pipe-dream to most avicul-turists. We are told that:

Birds were the particular passion of the duke, and he loved them so much that he could not bear to shut them up in their cages, so he hit upon an original device for keeping them near him. Close to the chateau was a little wood through which a stream wandered, and over the whole of this the duke had almost invisible wire-netting stretched, covering the tree-tops and so transforming the wood into an immense aviary. Clumps of flowers were then planted amongst the undergrowth, the duke's writing-table and book-case were arranged at the foot of a tree in the middle, and lastly, quantities of birds were turned loose inside the netting.

The above quotation is from a book published many years ago, The Chevalier de Boufflers by Nesta H. Webster, and I think the following excerpt from the same book is of sufficient interest as to be worth quoting in full:

One wonders whether the Chevalier de Boufflers brought the old Due de Nivernais any birds from Senegal, of which at one period he was governor, for we read that on his first return to France (1786) he arrived "with the oddest presents for all his friends. There was a Parra-keet for the Queen (Marie Antoinette) which talked Senegalese and French with equal fluency, and had been carefully instructed in suitable greetings for its royal owner: 'Ou est la reine? Je veux la voir. La viola! Ah! qu'elle est belle! Je veux la voir toujours, toujours.' " Several birds died on the voyage.

The Chevalier de BoufHers in his journal told Madame de Sabran: "I have lost a green parrot with a red head that I had meant for Elzear [her son], a spoonbill for the Bishop of Laon, five or six parakeets; and finally, last night I was present at the death of a poor yellow parrot, the first that had ever been seen in Africa, and as he was unique amongst his kind, I thought of giving him to one who is unique amongst her kind, and who is to the human race what the human race [meaning Madame de Sabran herself] is to parrots."

To my mind the most interesting thing is the reference to the death of "a poor yellow parrot, the first that had ever been seen in Africa, and . . . unique amongst his kind."

The fact that its uniqueness is stressed suggests that it was probably a pink-eyed Lutino or possibly a normal-eyed Yellow specimen of the Senegal Parrot, which is very common in that part of Africa and in addition has a considerable yellow area in its plumage. If so it is the first one I have ever heard of, and if it had been imported about 170 years later it is conceivable that a Lutino or Yellow strain of the Senegal might have been established in confinement.

As to the "green parrot with a red head" (presumably from the same part of Africa) it is rather puzzling to know to which species this refers and I can only think of two to which this description might at all apply, namely the Senegal's much rarer relatives Jardine's Parrot (Pceocephalus gulielmi) and Aubry's Parrot (Pceocephalus aubryanus). Both have at any rate the forepart of the crown red or orange-red, but I should have thought it most unlikely that either species would have been imported into Europe in those far-off days.

It is not an easy task to fix the exact date when parrots first became known in Europe, but I should say that the middle of the fifteenth century is the most probable time for we read that it was in the year 1455 that "a Senegal Parrot was first heard of in Europe". I don't think this necessarily means Pceocephalus senegalus. It more probably merely refers to a parrot of some kind imported from that part of Africa. It seems to have been nearly fifty years later (in 1504) that the first parrots reached England and were "shown as a great curiosity".

There are two historical Grey Parrots that deserve mention here, belonging respectively to King Henry VIII and to the famous and enchanting Duchess of Lennox and Richmond who was known as "La belle Stuart" and was a mistress of King Charles II.

While we do not know much of the Tudor parrot beyond the fact that it was a Grey and certainly did belong to Henry VIII, we know a good deal about the Stuart one and indeed its stuffed body—believed to be the oldest stuffed bird in the world—can be seen in the Norman Undercroft Museum at Westminster Abbey to this day.

A passage from the Duchess's Will made in 1702 gives instructions "to have my Effigie as well done in Wax as can bee and set up... in a press by itselfe with cleare crowne glasse before it and dressed in my Coronation Robes and Coronett", and as her beloved parrot, which did not long survive its mistress, was subsequently stuffed and placed with her "Effigie" she had doubtless given verbal instructions for this to be done when the parrot died.

I think the photograph facing page 2 is of great interest, and it seems to me that some of the enchantment the Duchess must have possessed lives on even in this old wax figure.

The popularity as pets of the various members of the parrot family can be gauged from the frequency with which they appear in family portraits of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when, in addition no doubt to being cherished pets, they probably also possessed to a considerable extent what would now be called snob value—that is to say, like rich and elaborate clothing and jewels, their possession demonstrated at once the social status of then-owner. In the seventeenth, and perhaps to a slightly lesser extent in the eighteenth century in this country, foreign birds were exotic luxuries only to be found in the homes of the aristocracy, and their inclusion in family portraits was therefore a reminder that their owners were people of wealth and position. Nor did this traditional link between aviculture and the aristocracy quickly die: indeed it lingered on until the wonderful collection of parrot-like and other birds maintained in the park at Woburn Abbey for so many years was finally dispersed on the death a few years ago of their owner, the twelfth Duke of Bedford.

A former Lord Lilford of Lilford Park near Oundle was a very eminent aviculturist who bred parrots, cockatoos and, I believe, macaws as well at complete liberty on his estate.

A very famous collection in years gone by, and indeed one which amounted almost to a private menagerie, used to be maintained by successive Earls of Derby at their family seat, Knowsley House near Liverpool, and the beautiful little Australian parrakeet, the Stanley, bears their family name, as also does the Derbyan Parrakeet.

Nowadays, chiefly owing to the confiscatory taxation and death duties levied on large estates in this country, the extensive private collections of rare and exotic birds which used to be maintained by people of wealth and culture are quite a thing of the past—the descendants of such people usually being nowadays fully occupied in trying to avoid having to sell their family homes by inducing the general public to wander round their great houses and stroll in their parks for a payment of half a crown a head.

During the nineteenth century the keeping of exotic birds as pets ceased to be the monopoly of the wealthy and gradually spread to all classes of the community—the two birds that reigned supreme in this field being, I should say, the parrot and the canary, both of which nowadays have a very strong rival in the ubiquitous budgerigar.

The Germans were extremely skilful aviculturists who bred many rare foreign birds in captivity for the first time, and the Prince Consort shared his nation's interest in foreign bird-keeping. He it was who introduced the traditional German custom of the Christmas Tree into this country, and I should say that the tremendous increase of interest in the keeping of foreign birds (both in aviaries and as pets) which took place during the nineteenth century was in part at any rate due to him.

Of his descendants, King George V had a pet Roseate Cockatoo to which he was extremely devoted, although I believe Queen Mary regarded the bird less favourably than did her husband. On bidding farewell to a friend who had lunched at Sandringham, the King would often have the cockatoo sitting on his arm or shoulder, but what Queen Mary objected to so strongly was entirely a domestic matter. It appears that the King liked to have his cockatoo with him when he was dressing for dinner, and while doing so would put it on a towel-rail in his dressing-room where it had a lovely time biting up the towels—biting things up being an affectionate gesture on the part of many of the cockatoos, which in an aviary will often whittle away at a perch with much raising and lowering of the crest while one is talking to them. However, whether chewing up the royal towels was a gesture of affection for its owner on the Roseate's part or was simply done from sheer naughtiness I don't know, but I do know that it annoyed Queen Mary extremely, and I can't say I blame her!

Nevertheless, regrettable as the towel affair undoubtedly was, these brief glimpses of a cockatoo with its royal owner do show that King George V was a real lover of birds who regarded his tame Roseate not simply as a bird in a cage, but as a friend that he liked to have with him whenever possible.

He also had a small but choice collection of parrakeets which were housed and looked after for him by Mrs. Featherstonehaugh. These included a pair of Splendid Grass Parrakeets which were presented to the King from Australia and were the first Splendids to reach Europe for fifty years or so. I have always felt it was a great privilege that, on their arrival, Mrs. Featherstonehaugh rang me up from Royal Lodge, Windsor Great Park, where she was then living, and asked me to go over and advise on their housing and treatment.

Finally, to come right down to the present day, talking parrots are just as popular as ever, and the Queen shares her subjects' phenomenally widespread interest in budgerigars, keeping an aviary of them at Windsor.

The Parrot

IN painted plumes superbly dress'd,
A native of the gorgeous East,
By many a billow toss'd;
Poll gains at length the British shore,
Part of the captain's precious store,
A present to his toast.

Belinda's maids are soon preferr'd, To
teach him now and then a word, As
Poll can master it; But 'tis her own
important charge To qualify him more
at large, And make him quite a wit.

Sweet Poll! his doting mistress cries,
Sweet Poll! the mimic bird replies And

calls aloud for sack. She next instructs
him in a kiss, 'Tis now a little one, like
Miss, And now a hearty smack.

At first he aims at what he hears,
And listening close with both his ears,
Just catches at the sound;
But soon articulates aloud
Much to the amusement of the crowd,
And stuns the neighbours round.

When children first begin to spell,
And stammer out a syllable,
We think them tedious creatures,
But difficulties soon abate
When birds are to be taught to prate
And women are the teachers.

WILLIAM COWPER (173I-I8OO)

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here….