The Waterbury Democrat., 1933-08-21
? IN HI ! | NEW II . | YORK
By PAUL HARRISON


 New York.-Arturo ToscaninI can't whistle. He is a great musi- elan, unquestionably. and q fa- nous conductor. He can play number of instruments. and some of them pretty well, too. He can even sing a little. and he certainly knows good whistling when ne hears it. But try as he will, arr range his lips as he may, he just can't whistle. :. Another thing that Toscanini can't do is coax canary birds to sing. A friend gave him q couple of birds the other day, costly ones | fin A nice cage, and reputedly in fine voice. Toscanini took them to his apartment and sat down to | listen. Nothing happened. He pleaded with them, and made sug- gestiye chirping noises. The cam aries just looked at him reproach- fully.
 Coaching Canarles He went to the piano and played I-tinkling, melodious tunes, and even some folksongs from the Hartz mountains. The birds were bored. They weren't impressed. even if the great Toscanini could persuade a whole symphony or- chestra to outdo itself.
 This went on for days. Finally young woman named Dorle Jar mel came into the studio. She whistled at the birds and they burst into throat-splitting song. tro, who began pacing up and 1,sax 1af " fffn n of his fingers through his hair "Ah," cried Toscanini, ''what would give if I could only whistle!" Bird owners who are leaving town for @ while park their pets at the Virginia Pope Club House and Sanitarium for Birds. This is sort of rest home, hospital, train ing school and boarding house, and now has about 125 paying guests. People have sent their birds there from as far west as Colorado, and sometimes mail in checks for years before reclaiming their pets ..
 Composing Parrot
 There is a parrot at the place now, which is certified to be a hundred years old. Shows her age, too. as she slides rheumily along her perch and makes senilc clucking sounds. She doesn't talk, but she does hum a couple of tunes. Nobody knows whether they were popular airs a century |ago, or whether the old parrot just made them up herself =.
 There's a big white cuckatoo at the sanitarium, for moulting trou- ble, and she looks like thread bare old dowager. Everyone is in- terested in her case because. it seems, she recently laid an egg Another patient is canary of peculiar orange hue. His owner fed him some dye to make him change color. But it also made him sick.
 The bird home is named after its original owner, who founded the institution 49 years ago, but 1t Is now under the management of Mrs Hattie Williams. She says that she has cared for just about all the birds belonging to Broadway folk, from macaWs to crows. Mar garet Anglin left a parrot there as pensioner. Also there is a. cockatoo that used to be on the stage, and can still do dance to. prove 1t. Marion Talley left cou- pie of canaries that she brought back from Europe. And Mrs Will Hams used to have a Wall street parrot that was always grumbling about the market.
 The Birds Autopsy <
 The women attendants at the. sanitarium are skilled in bird lore.s and for relaxation they sometimes go up to the bird house in the Bronx Zoo. They make and applya splints for broken legs. cure colds with whiskey, and perform very delicate little operations on their patients. (Birds cannot be anaes- thetized.) When one of the birds dies, and the directors of the home aont understand the cause. they have the Carnegie Institute per- form an autopsy and send in re- port.