Psittacus macao, Lin., Russ. Synonyms: Ara macao, L.Z.S.; Psittacus erythroryaneus, Gssn.;

RED AND BLUE MACAW.

Psittacus aracanga, Gml.; Macrocercus aracanga et macao, Vll.;

Sittace aracanga, Wgl.; Sittace macao, Fnsch.

German: Der hellrothe Arara.

French: L'ara rouge, Buffon.

THIS grand bird is, without a doubt, king of all the Macaws: his gigantic size, forty inches in length, twenty-four of which belong to the tail, his immense beak, and formidable claws, not to say talons, his deafening outcries, his gorgeous plumage, and voracious appetite, are qualifications in right of which he is raised to the Macrocercian, if not exactly to the Psittacidean, throne, to which not one of his congeners, we imagine, will venture to dispute his title.

He is docile, gentle even, and teachable to a very great extent. "They learn to repeat many words", says Bechstein, "to go and come, and also to obey the least signal from their master."

But that great master of bird-lore was not fond of the bird nevertheless, for he continues: "I confess, however, that their awkward walk, their heavy movements, and their constant inclination to help themselves along with their beak, added to their great uncleanliness, does not appear very agreeable."

The latter objection might be readily met by feeding the Bed and Blue Macaw on a more natural diet than that usually assigned to it, to wit, "bread and milk sop", which was the recognised food of these birds even in Bechstein's time, for, writing on this subject, he says: "In its native country the fruit of the palm tree is its principal food; our fruit it also likes, but white bread soaked in milk agrees with it better; biscuit does not hurt it; but meat, sweetmeats, and other niceties are very injurious: and though at first it does not appear to be injured, it becomes unhealthy, its feathers stand up separate, it pecks and tears them, above all those on the first joint of the pinion, and it even makes holes in different parts of its body."

Poor dyspeptic Macaw, if the picture of your sufferings just quoted had been drawn to-day, instead of a hundred years ago, it could not have been more accurate. What then is the proper food for this species? "Many bird-fanciers", continues our author, "say that the best food for Parrots is simply the crumbs of white bread, well baked, without salt, soaked in water, and then slightly squeezed in the hand. But though this appears to agree with them pretty well, it is however certain that now and then something else ought to be added."

So, indeed, we should say! and Bechstein was of the same opinion, for he goes on to remark: "I have observed that Parrots which are thus fed are very thin, have hardly strength to bear moulting, and sometimes even do not moult at all: in that case they become asthmatic, and die of consumption."

Away then with "sop" and its inevitable concomitants of dirty sour tins and diarrhea: a Macaw fed on oats, canary seed, maize, and hemp seed, with the addition, now and then, of a lunch biscuit, ripe fruit of all sorts, a slice of carrot, turnip, potato, or even mangel wurzel, will be healthy and his cage clean: on the ordinary diet usually given in this country he is generally unhealthy, and always dirty, which is not by any means the fault of the poor bird, but that of its master, who has it in his power, by treating his Macaw more in conformity with its natural habits, to correct the evils of which he complains in connection with keeping it in captivity.

The appearance of this Macaw, even when caged, or chained to a perch, is such as to at once arrest the attention of the most indifferent beholder; but when seen at liberty, in this country even, actively climbing among the branches of a large tree, or wheeling round and round in the sunshine, like an enormously exaggerated butterfly, he ought to be "a joy for ever", for that he is "a thing of beauty", few, we imagine that have ever seen a perfect specimen of his race, will be ready to deny.

The head, neck, breast, belly, thighs, top of the back, and the upper wing coverts, are brilliant vermilion. The lower part of the back and the rump are light blue. The scapulars and large wing coverts are a mixture of blue, yellow, and green. The naked cheeks are covered with wrinkled whitish skin. The under surface of all the tail feathers is red.

The female bears a general resemblance to her mate, but the colours of her plumage are of a duller shade than his.

This fine bird is a native of South America, abounding in the forests of Brazil and Guiana; Dr. Russ adds "Mexico and Peru", but we doubt its occurrence in the former country; its head-quarters appear to be the Amazon region, which it shares with numerous species of the Psittacidoe.

Waterton, writing of the bird under consideration, observes, "Superior in size and beauty to any Parrot of South America, the Ara will force you to take your eyes from the rest of animated nature and gaze at him: his commanding strength, the flaming scarlet of his body, the lovely variety of red, yellow, blue, and green in his wings, the extraordinary length of his scarlet and blue tail, seem all to join and demand for him the title of Emperor of all the Parrots", which is a still higher title than we had ventured to confer upon him in the opening sentences of this chapter.

"He is scarce in Demerara", continues our author, "until you reach the confines of the Macoushi country; there he is in vast abundance: he mostly feeds on trees of the palm species. When the coucourite trees have ripe fruit upon them, they are covered with this magnificent Parrot. He is not shy or wary; you may take your blowpipe and a quiver of poisoned arrows and kill more than you are able to carry back to your hut."

Let us hope the American naturalist was never guilty of such a piece of wanton cruelty, not to say sacrilege as that he hints at here: he continues, "They are very vociferous, and like the common Parrots, rise up in bodies towards sunset, and fly two and two to their places of rest. It is a grand sight in ornithology to see thousands of Aras flying over your head, low enough to let you have a full view of their flaming mantle. The Indians find the flesh very good, and the feathers serve for ornaments in their head-dresses."

These birds make their nests in the holes of trees, which they enlarge and fashion to their liking: there are usually two broods in the season, of two young each time; male and female sit alternately upon the eggs, which are generally two, very rarely three, in number. It is not unusual for the females of this species to lay in captivity, and even to evince a strong desire to incubate, but young ones are rare, and we know of no well authenticated instance in which they have reared their offspring in captivity: seeing, however, that the Red and Blue Macaws that are brought into this country, were taken when quite young from their nest, reared by hand, and are consequently quite tame, there seems no reason why they should not freely breed here, as well as many of their congeners, but in all probability this is because no serious attempt as ever been made to induce them to nest in our aviaries.

Mr. Wiener's account of his experience with this bird and its fellow, which forms the subject of our next chapter, is brief and to the point: "The Macaws I may dismiss with a very few words. I tried a Bed and Yellow Macaw, and a Blue and Yellow Macaw. A couple of expensive cages were demolished very quickly, and before a pair of stands could be finished by the maker. The destruction of the hard wood perches and mahogany uprights of their new stands afforded about two days' amusement to the birds, who next peeled off the wall-paper within reach, and gnawed the corner of a billiard-table. This mischief was accompanied by such deafening screams, that a couple of weeks' possession had quite settled my determination to get rid of the magnificent Macaws on any terms, and never to buy one again at any price. Their huge size, brilliant feathers, and loud screams are a very good advertisement for a travelling menagerie, to whom amateurs had better abandon these birds, unless some one would care to construct a wrought-iron in-door aviary (I doubt whether bricks and mortar would be proof against their beaks), to make an attempt at breeding. A pair exhibited some years since at the Crystal Palace were said to have laid eggs in confinement: and as Macaws always arrive in Europe quite tame, it ought to be possible to breed them."

From the foregoing account it would appear that Mr. Wiener was unfortunate in his experience, and that instead of a couple of tame birds, he was imposed upon, and induced to buy two, caught when adult, which, as Bechstein well observes, "are savage and untractable, and would only stun one with their unbearable cries, the faithful interpreters of their different passions."

"Yes", writes Mr. Gedney, who, by the bye, calls this bird "the Military Macaw", "an old trapped Macaw affords plenty of 'raw material' upon which the advocates of 'moral suasion', as a means of taming wild creatures, might very well try their hands. I knew one bird that defied every effort made to tame him, and he killed a bull terrier that shared his place in the stables: you could not live in the house with him! Both his wings were broken in this terrific battle, and a pretty spectacle the place presented when the man went as usual to feed him in the morning. There laid poor Tyke dead, with his throat torn open, the bird, covered with blood and almost featherless, stood by, with distended and drooping wings, a perfect scarcecrow, shrieking at intervals, either in spite or pain. What was to be done with the creature? Kill him, every one said but the man who looked after the bird; so his belief that the injuries would tame him saved his (the bird's) life: and the cripple was consequently shut up in a pig-stye. His wings got well, the bones growing out of place, but this old savage never abated one atom of his hatred for every one that went near him, and he had ultimately to be poisoned."

We can heartily endorse the following recommendation by the same author: - "Never keep a Macaw in a cage, because, if you do, his gorgeous tail will assuredly be spoiled, and the soiled condition of the cage will inevitably become a nuisance, no matter how great may be the attention bestowed upon its frequent cleansing."

If the owner has not an aviary of sufficient extent and strength to permit of his placing his Macaw in it, and the bird itself is not sufficiently tame to admit of allowing it its freedom, he had better have it fastened by one leg to a stand, by means of a light steel chain: the latter should be attached by means of a ring of sufficient size to admit of its sliding freely up and down to an upright of some strong wood, at the upper extremity of which should be placed a cross bar, the whole taking the shape of the capital letter T; the seed and water tins should be placed at either end of the horizontal bar, and if a Well-sanded tray be placed at the bottom of the upright, very little dirt will be made, and the bird be kept in a clean and comfortable condition.

A Macaw thus kept soon becomes very tame, and rarely attempts to bite: as some of these birds, however, are treacherous in their conduct towards children, whom too many have reason to consider their natural enemies, it is as well to caution the young folk against approaching them too nearly.

We have seen tame Macaws as quiet and gentle as any bird can possibly be, and so far from being noisy their voice was very seldom heard, and when utterance was occasionally given to a squeak, rather than a shriek, the note was far from being as shrill and disagreeable as that of the Rosy Cockatoo, for instance, or even the Alexandrine Parrakeet; but no reliable inferences can be drawn from the disposition of individual birds, for they vary in temper, not to say character, as much as men do.

The extreme beauty of a flight of these grand birds is well described in the following extract from Anson's Voyage, page 218: writing of a waterfall in the Island of Quibo, he says, "While we were observing it, there came in sight a prodigious flight of Macaws: which hovering over the spot, and often wheeling and playing on the wing about it, afforded a most brilliant appearance, by the glittering of the sun on their variegated plumage: so that some of the spectators cannot refrain from a kind of transport, when they recount the complicated beauties which occurred in this extraordinary waterfall."

It is curious that Latham, when writing of this bird, should fall into the doable mistake of saying that "its eggs are spotted as in the Partridge", for the eggs of the latter bird, as is very well known, are of a uniform olive colour, without a spot of any kind, and those of the Macaw are pure white, which we believe, without any exception! is the colour of the eggs of every species of the family, whether found in the old world or the new.