Mankind’s favourite companion parrot
THE ancient Greeks kept parrots. Later, aristocratic Romans created a fashion for carrying a tame parrot on their wrist and wrote advice on how to encourage parrots to talk. Large consignments of parrots were imported to Rome from Africa, where indigenous people routinely hand-reared them for the trade. Even locations without native parrots, such as the Canary Islands, traded parrots that originated on the African mainland.
By Tudor times, parrots were regularly imported into Europe. Henry VIII had a pet African grey. Sailors would often keep parrots in their cabins during a voyage and smuggle them ashore to sell. Trafficked parrots have always had a high mortality rate. Everyone wanted a talking parrot and in that regard the African grey (Psittacus erithacus) is second to none.
“Up close, the name ‘grey’
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