TALKING BIRDS

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3471, 26 May 1934, Page 5

TALKING BIRDS

PARROT’S MANA LOST

BEATEN BY BUDGERIGARS There are many bird-lovers in Te Aroha, and doubtless those who own those dainty iittle specimens, budgerigars, will read with interest that the parrot's reputation for being the best talking bird is in danger. He has a very serious rival in that little pastel-tinted fellow, the budgerigar. in the £50,000 bird show at the Crystal Palace, the finest ever seen in England* there was 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 could 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,

It’s 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 “O.K. Baby,” and lots of other' things. Altogether there were 5000 birds in the show, from Indian, tits to pheasants. Some were priced at £IOOO. 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 the £IOOO ruby and topaz humming bird that changed colour as you looked at it.