Northwest enterprise. [volume] (Anacortes, Wash. Ter.) 1882-1887, 1883-05-05
A WISE PARROT.
The Cat Concludes that it is Green
Chicken"
THEN FLIES IN ALARM AZ THE
PARROTS WISDOM


that was hungry for bird-meat once
had an encounter. The cat was put
to flight by the loquacity of the par
rot, and a charming French writer
thus describes the scene. He says
that friend who was leaving home
for short time left in his charge her
favorite parrot. Tne bird was lonely
and climbed to the top of his perch,
and sat there rolling about in a
scared way his eyes, which gllttered
like gilt nails, and twinkling over
them the white membranes which
served for eyelids.
Madame Theophile, the cat, had
never before encountered parrot,
and the novelty awoke in her mind
an evident sstonishment. She sat
regarding the bird with an air of
profound meditation and putting to-
gether all the ideas of natural his
tory which she had been able to col
lect during her excursions ON the
roof or in the courtyard and garden.
The shadows of her thoughts fitted
across her changeful eyes, and it was
not difficult to read the decision at
which she finally arrived:
This is-decidedly-'it is-a green
chicken"
This conclusion reached, the cat
jumped from the table which she had
chosen as her observatory. and
crouched in corner of tho room.
her knees bent, her head lowered, her
spine stiffened like that of the black
panther in Gerome's picture as it
glares at the gazelles who are drink
ing by the lake.
The parrot followed each move
ment of the cat with feverish dis
quietude. His feathers bristled; he
ratified his chain, raised one of his
claws and exercised its talons, while
he whetted his beak on the edge of
the feeding cup. Instinct revealed
to him that this was an enemy who
was plotting mischief.
AS for the eyes of the cat, they
were rivited on the bird with fas-
cinated intensity, and said plainly as
language could speak, and in a Ian
guage which the parrot understood
only too we'll:
Green though he be, this chicken
is without doubt good to eat
While l watched this scene with
interest, ready TO interfere whenever
it should seem necessary, Madame
Theophile was imperceptibly drawing
nearer to her prey.
Her pink nose quivered, her eyes
were half shut. her elastic claws pro-
jected and then disappeared again in
their velvet sheaths, little shivers ran
down her spine; she was like an epi
cure as he seats himself at table be-
fore a dish of truflled chicken.
Suddenly her back curved like a
bow which is bent, and with one
strong, elastic bound she alighted on
the perch.
The parrot, seeing his danger, re-
in deep voice, low and
solemn
"Hast thou breakiasted, Jacquet!"
This remark created in the mind OF
the cat an evident dismay. She took
a sudden leap backward. A blast
from trumpet, pile of plates
crashing to the floor, a pistol shot
close to the ear, could not have in
spired more sudden and giddy terror
in an animal of her race. All her
ornithological ideas were in one fell
moment overturned.
And on what? On the roast beef
of the kim" screamed the parrot.
The face of the cat now said as
distinctly as words. This is not a
bird: it is a gentleman! He speaks!
"When on wine had feasted free,
The tavern turns around with me-"
cried the bird. in tremendous voice,
for he perceived that the alarm
caused by his words was his readiest
means Of defense.
The cat cast questioning glance
towards me, and getting no reassur-
ance in reply. took refuge under the
bed. from which place of safety she
could not be enticed for the remaind-
er of that day Youths Companion.