Chapter 2 - Teaching A Parrot To Talk

Most parrots are not seriously taught to talk—they merely pick up odd words and scraps of conversation they happen to overhear. A few phrases such as "Good morning, Polly" or "Hullo, Polly!" may be clearly enunciated for the simple reason that they were, when said, actually addressed to the bird itself. I am convinced, therefore, that if you have a suitable subject in a young parrot and want it one day to be a brilliant talker you must train it to become one, and this can only be done by patience and kindness.

First of all you must gain the bird's complete confidence and affection. If it has the slightest fear of you or does not trust you, all your efforts to train it to talk will be abortive, as it will never be relaxed enough to concentrate and learn properly.

The best time to teach parrots to talk is in the late evening when they are apt to be in a quiet and contemplative mood, whereas in the morning they are usually at their noisiest and most active. It is essential also to choose a time when the room's sole occupants can be yourself and your parrot—if other people are talking in the room it is hopeless.

It is a good plan to get the bird used to having the back and two sides of its cage temporarily covered over at lesson time so that it will have its attention distracted as little as possible and be able to concentrate on what you are trying to teach it.

You should then say over very clearly whatever sentence you wish it to learn, and, always. allowing a suitable interval between each, repeat this perhaps a dozen times. It is of the utmost importance that you should then leave the bird alone to think over what it has heard you say. If you insist upon lingering in the room to lavish endearments on your pet, such as "Polly has been a good boy", you will merely find that the sentence you have been trying to teach the bird will—if remembered at all—have "Polly has been a good boy" interposed quite irrelevantly in the middle of it—and you will have only yourself to blame!

What I have said applies equally of course to any bird that can be taught to talk, but I thought it worth including this note on teaching a bird to talk instead of letting its sole repertoire consist, as is so often the case, of a hotchpotch of people laughing, dogs barking, disjointed scraps of talk and, that delight of most talking parrots, the one-sided conversation of somebody telephoning in an adjoining room.

Most parrots will pick up anything they hear—and an Amazon of mine imitates to such perfection the rather lost, eerie sound of a train whistle on a frosty night that you almost expect to hear the train itself! Some imitate the barking of dogs of various sizes; others the screaming of babies; and almost the sole sentence of some I have encountered has been "Polly want a cup of tea?" which I suppose does at any rate show that they have come from a typically English household!

What I have said about teaching a parrot to talk applies every bit as much to teaching it to whistle a tune. Whatever the tune may be it must be whistled right through from beginning to end, and, allowing suitable intervals between, this must be done several times over and the bird must then be left in peace and quiet for it to sink in. Most parrots whistle odd scraps and snatches of tunes, but only properly and patiently trained ones will whistle a tune right through from beginning to end without a mistake; and I do think the training—which involves no hardship for the bird—is very well worth while in the way of results. Let no one suppose that, for the bird's owner, it has been as easy as falling off a log. It has not, for it required both skill and patience, but most of all—patience.

Here I will say a few words of warning to those -who buy a "talking parrot" and are terribly disappointed when it doesn't start talking away nineteen to the dozen as soon as it reaches its new home. The more intelligent the bird, the less likely it is to do this. It must be realized that members of the parrot family are extremely intelligent creatures, and like the more intelligent members of the human race they too are apt to be very sensitive, particularly to change of environment. Thus a parrot which is known to be an excellent talker may, if sent to a new owner in unfamiliar surroundings, fail to utter a single word for days or even weeks, until it has entirely settled down in its new home. I have thought it important to point this out, because people who have had little experience with parrots and buy a talking specimen are apt to write complaining bitterly that they have been swindled if the bird does not start talking within a few hours of its arrival.

Pieces Of Eight!

"HERE'S Cap'n Flint—I call my parrot Cap'n Flint after the famous buccaneer—here's Cap'n Flint predicting success to our voyage. Weren't you, Cap'n?"

And the parrot would say, with great rapidity "Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight! Pieces of eight!" till you wondered it was not out of breath, or till John threw his handkerchief over the cage.

"Now that bird," he would say, "is, maybe, two hundred years old, Hawkins—they lives for ever, mostly; and if anybody's seen more wickedness it must be the devil himself. She's sailed with England, the great Captain England, the pirate. She's been at Madagascar, and at Malabar, and Surinam, and Providence and Portobello. She was at the fishing up of the wrecked Plate ships. It's there she learnt 'Pieces of eight,' and little wonder; three hundred and fifty thousand of 'em, Hawkins! She was at the boarding of the Viceroy of the Indies out of Goa, she was, and to look at her you would think she was a babby. But you smelt powder, didn't you, Cap'n?"

"Stand by to go about," the parrot would scream.

"Ah, she's a handsome craft, she is," the cook would say, and give her sugar from his pocket, and then the bird would peck at the bars and swear straight on, passing belief for wickedness.

"There," John would add. "You can't touch pitch and not be mucked, lad. Here's this poor old innocent bird o' mine swearing blue fire, and none the wiser, you may lay to that. She would swear the same, in a manner of speaking, before Chaplain."

ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON

from Treasure Island

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