HOW TO LIVE WITH A PARAKEET

A script writer, working on a film to promote parakeet home ownership, was given a feathered friend- and this is a no-nonsense account of his own domestication to a life with more than one bird. The failure of teaching Buster to speak (Pretty Boy and Pretty Bird doesn't always take); the revelation that Buster was a girl and the attempt to find a mate (parakeets are ""sexually confused"" and their gender difficult to determine); the learning by living with Buster, then Tarzan and Goofball- all offer a good deal of information (cages, cage covers, leaving them at large, food, ailments, illnesses, household hazards, etc.) for any other owner. There are ten million of them and they should enjoy Mr. Benson's fond but not fatuous account. There is an apendix of parakeet ailments prepared by French's Pet Bird Institute.