Even more aberrant in its ways, however, than the burrowing owl-parrot, is that other strange and hated New Zealand lory, the kea, which, alone among its kind, has adjured the gentle ancestral vegetarianism of the cockatoos and macaws, in favor of a carnivorous diet of remarkable ferocity. And what is stranger still, this evil habit has been developed in the kea since the colonization of New Zealand by the British, the most demoralizing of new-comers, as far as all aborigines are concerned. The English settlers have taught the Maori to wear silk hats and to drink strong liquors, and they have thrown temptation in the way of even the once innocent native parrot. Before the white man came, the kea was a mild-mannered, fruit-eating or honey-sucking bird. But as soon as sheep-stations were established on the island these degenerate parrots began to acquire a distinct taste for raw mutton. At first they ate only the offal that was thrown out from the slaughter-houses, picking the bones as clean of meat as a dog or a jackal. But in course of time, as the taste for blood grew, a new and debased idea entered their heads. If dead sheep are good to eat, are not living ones? The keas, having pondered deeply over this abstruse problem, solved it in the affirmative. Proceeding to act upon their convictions, they invented a truly hideous mode of procedure. A number of birds hunt out a weakly member of a flock, almost always after dark. The sheep is worried to death by the combined efforts of the parrots, some of whom perch themselves upon the animal’s back and tear open the flesh, their object being to reach the kidneys, which they devour at the earliest possible moment. As many as two hundred ewes are said to have been killed in a single night on one “station” – ranch, we should call it. I need hardly say that the New Zealand sheep-farmer resents this irregular procedure, so opposed to all ideas of humanity, to say nothing of good-farming, and, as a result, the existence of the kea is now limited to a few years. But from a purely psychological point of view the case is interesting, as being the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct actually under the eyes of human observers.
A few words as to the general coloring of the parrot group. Tropical forestine birds have usually a ground tone of green because that color enables them best to escape notice among the monotonous verdure of equatorial woodland scenery. In the north, it is true, green is a very conspicuous color; but that is only because for half the year our trees are bare, and even during the other half they lack that “breadth of tropic shade” which characterizes the forests of all hot countries. Therefore, in temperate climates, the common ground-tone of birds is brown, to harmonize with the bare boughs and leafless twigs, the dead grass or stubble. But in the ever-green tropics, green is the proper hue for concealment or defense. Therefore the parrots, the most purely tropical family of birds on earth, are chiefly greenish; and among the smaller and more defenceless sorts, like the little love-birds, where the need for protection is greatest, the green of the plumage is almost unbroken. Green, in truth, must be regarded as the basal parrot tint, from which all other colors are special decorative variations.
But fruit-eating and flower-feeding creatures – such as butterflies and humming birds – seeking their food among the brilliant flowers and bright berries, almost invariably acquire a taste for varied coloring, and by the aid of the factor in evolution, known as sexual selection, this taste stereotypes itself at last upon their wings and plumage. They choose their mates for their attractive coloring. As a consequence, all the larger and more gregarious parrots, in which the need for concealment is less, tend to diversify the fundamental green of their coats with red, yellow or blue, which in some cases takes possession of the entire body. The largest kinds of all, like the great blue and yellow or crimson macaws, are as gorgeous as birds well could be; they are also the species least afraid of enemies. In Brazil, it is said, they may often be seen moving about in pairs in the evening with as little attempt at concealment as storks in Germany.
Even the New Zealand owl-parrot still retains many traces of his original greenness, mixed with the brown and dingy yellow of his nocturnal and burrowing nature.
I now turn to the parrot’s power of mimicry in human language. This power is only an incidental result of the general intelligence of parrots, combined with the other peculiarities of their social life and forestine character. Dominant woodland animals, like monkeys and parrots, at least if vegetarian in their habits, are almost always gregarious, noisy, mischievous, and imitative. And the imitation results directly from a somewhat high order of intelligence. The power of intellect, in all except the very highest phases, is merely the ability to accurately imitate another. Monkeys imitate action to a great extent, but their voices are hardly flexible enough for very much mimicry of the human voice. Parrots and some other birds, on the contrary, like the mocking bird, being endowed with considerable flexibility of voice, imitate either songs or spoken words with great distinctness. In the parrot the power of attention is also very considerable, for the bird will often repeat to itself the lesson it has decided to learn. But most of us forget that at best the parrot knows only the general application of a sentence, not the separate meanings of its component words. It knows, for example, that “Polly wants a lump of sugar” is a phrase often followed by a gift of food. But to believe it can understand an exclamation like “What a homely lot of parrots!” is to credit the bird with genuine comprehension. A careful consideration of the evidence has convinced almost all scientific men that, at the most, a parrot knows the meaning of a sentence in the same way as a dog understands the meaning of “Rats” or a horse knows the significance of “Get up.”
How can our fancies help but go
Out from this realm of mist and rain,
Out from this realm of sleet and snow,
When the first Southern violets blow?
POLLY
Letty was out under the big elm tree watching the kitten playing with the autumn leaves that were on the ground.
Suddenly something struck Letty on the shoulder. She looked around quickly, thinking that somebody had thrown a stone at her. No one was in sight, though she looked all about and even up in the tree. Then she noticed that the kitten was rolling something with its paws. She stooped and picked up what looked like a little bunch of elm leaves. She thought it strange that they should be stuck together, and when she found that it was quite heavy she was still more surprised.
She carried it into the house to show to her mother. “What is it?” she asked. “It came down off the tree and hit me on my shoulder. Is there a stone inside of it?”
“No,” said her mother. “It is a chrysalis. Some worm that lived on the elm tree drew these leaves together and spun a little case inside, and when the leaves were ready to fall, the chrysalis came down with them.”
“What kind of a worm do you suppose it was?”
“I do not know, but it must have been a large one, or the chrysalis would not be so heavy. We will keep it, and in the spring when the worm has turned into a butterfly and comes out of the case, perhaps we can learn what its name is.”
“But how will it get out?” asked Letty, anxiously. “It is so hard and tough. I tried to pull off one of the leaves and it stuck on tight.”
“Yes,” said her mother, “it is very tough and you could not tear it open with your fingers even if you tried very hard. But the butterfly throws out some kind of fluid which softens the silk – for it is a kind of silk, you know – and makes a hole large enough to crawl through. It does not have to be very big, as the butterfly’s wings are soft and wet. It has to let them dry and grow strong and stiff before it can fly.”
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