BEST TALKING BIRD

Evening Star, Issue 21711, 4 May 1934, Page 5

BEST TALKING BIRD

PARROT’S MANA LOST BEATEN BY BUDGERIGARS. The parrot’s reputation for being the best talking bird is in danger. He has a very serious rival in that little pasteltinted fellow, the budgerigar. In the £50,000 bird show at the Crystal Palace, the finest ever seen in England, there were recently budgerigars that could talk the average parrot’s head off. They recite poems and nursery rhymes. They have imagination as well as snappiness, and they are not rude, like parrots. It is even claimed .for some of them that they speak long sentences in the best 8.8. C. English. Take Billy Martin, shown by Mrs S. A. Martin, of Catford, says a London newspaper. His repertoire includes : Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow. Then there is Joey, who belongs to Mr H. Lucas, of Wandsworth. He knows several poems, and he will tell one it is 11 O.K. Baby,’ and lots of other things. Altogether there are 5,000 birds in the show, from Indian tits to pheasants. Some were priced at £I,OOO. Men sat in a room judging singing canaries and coaching the shy birds into song with a tinkling bell. One of the smallest drew the biggest crowd. It was a £I,OOO ruby and topaz humming bird that changed colour ns you looked, at it.