A PARROT'S LOGIC.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."]
Stu,—In the Spectator of January. 12th I made mention of a handsome green parrot for which my great-grandmother, Lady Aldborough, is said to have paid £40, and which came into my possession when I was eight years old. Jacko ' had been left to my grandmother, but be was, to use my father's phrase, such "a savage brute" with most people, and his love at first sight for me VMS so marked, that he was soon made over to me. If any one petted me he was jealous; if any one pretended to beat me he was furious. Max Muller contended that the line between human reason and animal instinct is not so hard-and-fast as is sometimes supposed; a bird before cracking a nut will sometimes judge by its weight whether it has a kernel or not: is not this an act of comparison? Jacko ' performed such an act after a fashion of his own. He had a way of taking my finger in his claw and playfully biting it, but he first experimented on his own leg. As, how- ever, the untutored Baconian did not allow for the fact that his leg was protected with feathers while my finger was not, his friendly peck was sometimes harder than I liked. Was not his hasty generalisation a rudimentary form of the inductio per enumerationem simplicem, ? In early boyhood I was sent (in forma' invalidi) as a day-scholar to a boarding- school at Brighton. jacko' used to be placed in the bow Window of our lodging; and from his joyful uproar my friends could at once tell when he espied me on my way home. When I went to Harrow the sense of bereavement, seconded by old age, soon did its work; and before my first term was over the loyal bird had sickened and died. Hamerton, after hinting at the possibility that all human reverence may gradually disappear from the earth, comforted
himself with the reflection that, even in that case, the torch of reverence will still be kept alight; for the reverence of dogs for their masters is indestructible. From one half-reasoning, wholly loving animal to another the step is short. And thus when I think of my dear Jack° ' I am reminded of the graceful epitaph which that friend of my youth, Sir Frannie Doyle, wrote on a favourite dog :— " Not hopeless round this calm sepulchral spot A wreath, presaging life, we twine; If God be love, what sleeps below was not Without a spark divine."
48 Albemarle Street, W.
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