A RADIO TALK FOR BUDGERIGARS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 2, 2 July 1938, Page 31

A RADIO TALK FOR BUDGERIGARS

Prizes were offered recently-by the "Manchester Guardian" for a suitable recitation for. ouqgerigars in any future appearance on the wireless. (These birds were broadcast by the 8.8.C.) . .

A limit to the recitation was set at sixty words, wliich may be a mere hors-d'oeuvre for competitors but is an orgy for any sort of bird, said the judge. Statistics of records are not easily available for bird speech, but sixty words (excluding pure repetition, of course) would probably break all of them in a very comfortable trot. To descend for a moment into the region of familiar quotations, birds do not use human speech well, but it is remarkable that they should use it at all. The same may be said of purveyors of farmyard and other animaV noises on the halls —logically there is *no reason why one of Nature's species should ape (or should we say "budgerigar"?) the noises of another, which can clearly have no meaning to it, but the fact remains that' this particular form- of imitation has always been most popular.

But we must not allow our budgerigars to get too much involved in complicated phrases. A return to realism (so fashionable today, my dears) will remind us that lovebirds' minds are small and their capacity to learn small, and that therefore they must not be. saddled with anything too complicated. This entry, from London, is undoubtedly charming, and, what is more, profound, but it is a little complicated in metre, a trifle elaborate in thought. It belongs rather to the musings of an angel lovebird than to the bread-and-butter speeches of a live one:

O- Parents and Budgerigardiana, we voice an idea that occurred.

To the mind of inquiring PythaKoras which you possibly mny not have heard; With persuasive tweet-tweets we propound you a question not wholly absurd: "Do you think that the soul of your grandatn might haply inhabit a bird?" Something is needed more in the manner of Skelton's poem on Philip, the sparrow, slain by Gib, the cat. The metre, the substance, the tone are all birdlike. For example: It was so1 pretty a. fool It would sit on a stool [ And learned after my school For to keep his cut! With, Philip, keep your cut! . "Keep your-cut". means to shut up; Philip would have been no broadcaster. ... The first prize went for a neat poem. It is perhaps a little hard to reconcile it with the strict terms of j the competition, and there is no doubt that if such sentiments were allowed past our Red 8.8.C. questions (yes, damme! and plenty of them) would be asked in the House of Commons, not to mention the Lords: "What Creatures you are I" Said the Budgerigar. "You taught "me to talk. You taught me to sing. But whereas you must walk, I am blessed with a wing. When the war-planes are purring With greetings from Ooerlng, What, then, is the worth Of a life tied to earth? I'll escape your damnation, You Lords of Creation." The second prize goes to Bob-a-looj bob-a-100. How d'ye do, how d'ye do? Pretty Poll, pretty Poll, Hello all. helio all. I love Jane, .Tane loves me. So why should I dream of a Hfe in a tree? If you're lovely as I, Never sigh, never sigh I My food in a glass . My bath in wet grass. ! Bob-a-100, bob-a-100.

How d'ye do, how d'ye do?