A Balancing Parrot

This bird balancing on his stand, challenges you to disturb his equilibrium. A slight blow will set him to swinging, but he is not easily " knocked off his perch."

The parrot is sawed from a single piece of quarter-inch whitewood, cut 5, 1/2 by 10, 1/2 inches. Fig. 2 shows the drawing which was made on paper the same size as the wood.

The sketch was cut out and used as a pattern in tracing the shape on the wood, preparatory to sawing it out. Fig. 3 shows the end view of the wood, and the saw in position. The stand (Fig. 4) is made of four pieces of whitewood stock, the dimensions of which are given in the drawing.

Lead weights such as are used in ladies' coats, are fastened to either side of the tail, at the extreme end. This is done with half-inch brads. The weights serve as a balance, increasing the pendulum-like motion of the bird when swinging.

The foot or claw of the bird is made of tin. A split or incision onequarter inch deep is made with the coping saw in the wood, and a flat piece of tin is forced into this cut. The size of the tin is about 1/4 inch by 1/2 inch. It may be cut with tinner's shears from a tin can. A narrow groove is made with a knife in the top of the perch, as indicated in Fig. 1.

Into this groove the tin edge of the claw is inserted, keeping our parrot from slipping off the perch. An attractive color scheme for the balancing parrot would be green, red, black and white?green for the stand, red for the comb, black for the bill, white for the body, green, red, black and white for the wing, and red and black for the tail. Opaque water colors may be used, with finishing coats of shellac, or enamel paints may be applied, if preferred.

The balancing parrot will also' perform his graceful undulations if he is set in a trapeze instead of on a perch. A trapeze may be made of two quarter-inch dowels (round sticks), respectively four and five inches long.

The parrot is fastened to the middle of the five-inch stick by means of a three-quarter-inch brad. A half-inch brad is driven into each end of each dowel so that a cord may be attached, in completing the trapeze. The upper and shorter dowel is about nine inches above the lower dowel. This gives the parrot ample room for swinging.

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