The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-05-10
A COLLEGE FOR PARROTS.
Unique School for the Birds Conducted
by Linguist.
New York Commercial.

New York Commercial.
Among the queer ways of earning steady
incomes in this country-and there are lots
of them-a Chicago man has hit upon what
is the most novel one up to date. He is
an accomplished linguist," as the ex-
preston goes, and he has turned his knowl-
edge TO a most excellent account, so far
without competition.
He has established in a back street. in a
rather obscure neighborhood. a language
school for parrots, and has scores of
students now in attendance at it, the
enterprise bidding fair to become perma-
nent and to yield him fortune. His spe-
cialty is that OF teaching parrots to speak
sentences, etc, in various languages, ac-
cording to the particular foreign market
10 which they are to be sold. The whole
of the parrot professors house. except two
rooms is given up to the birds, the rooms
In which are their cages being divided
up by sound-proof partitions into several
cage, that the birds may not hear each
other.
II believe am the only language tutor
to parrots" said the proprietor to New
York caller the other night. I've lived in
several foreign cities, and I know seven
foreign languages. At one time / was a
waiter and at another an interpreter, but
sisted in a garnet, doing translations and
giving French and German lessons at four
pence an hour. One day 1 thought of this.
CHANGED to ask If he sold many parrots
abroad. He replied: Hardly ever, because
of the different languages spoken abroad.
English-Speaking parrots naturally not be-
ing in much demand in foreign towns This
gave idea, and L suggested that L
should experiment with one of his parrots.
L took home a quite uneducated bird and
after few weeks had taught it to repeat
several short French sentences. After that
| started TO teaching his parrots to speak
French, German and Italian regularly L
work now entirely for the dealers, not for
private people. I've got quite a good con-
nection Of my own among the large parrot
dealers.
THE best bird for teaching foreign Ian
guages Is the African gray parrot, from the
west coast of Africa and Princes island.
My methods? Well, diet and warmth are
important l keep my parrots in an arti-
ficially warmed temperature of about so
degrees, acclimatizing them to cooler tenn
perature before selling, and give them some
proportion OF their native food-palm nuts,
bananas etc. 1 instruct my parrot pupils
in the mornings and evenings first pro-
nouncing one word for days together, later
two or three words. 1 make sentences of
words that join easily together. A bird will
learn short sentence in less than fort
night.
"An important secret is that of so teach
ing bird that it will seem to speak intel
ligently and as If 1t understood what was
happening at the moment. Then by pulling
cut my watch and then saying, What's the
time? the parrot soon learns to say,
What's the time? whenever it sees a
watch produced. To teach a bird to greet
a visitor with How d'you do? on the prop
Il Il
ter the room where the parrot is. To make
him say, Must you go? Goodbye rise
from chair, pick up my hat and stick,
and go out of the room repeating the
words
"A parrot will quite frequently catch UP
the exact tones of it's tutors voice as well
as the words. Working on this idea, have
now, after extraordinary trouble. an in
telligent parrot that has been taught to
give limitations Of actors-only a few, of
course, but he can give an exact imitation
of the voices of Elaine Terriss, George
GrosSmith, jr., and Yvette Guilbert, the
French singer. His best selection, how
ever is the four words in voice and tune
of Phyllis Rankin's When we are married
song from The Belle of New York How
was he taught? Well, of course, couldn't
engage these artists to teach him, but there
is a clever lady amateur actress who is
wonderful at limitations of actors and sing
ers' vocal peculiarities, and she had the
bird to live with her and coached him sew
eral months. until his vocal limitations were
so exact you'd think they'd been acquired
from the originals.
lone especial feature I've tried recently
Is an idea of my own-that of teaching
what L call my advertising parrots. They
are taught so that whenever they see any
one enter shop they say, Have you tried
so and SOS milk porridge?' or Hair Re-
storer? or whatever the commodity Is
The parrots cage, bearing a label adver-
Using the patent commodity, stands on the
shop counter, and the bird pGffs the article
all day long, for he has been purposely
Taught nothing else"