Dead Parrot sketch of "Death in Paradise". A joke dated AD 400, recently translated from Greek, shows similarities to the Parrot sketch. It was written by Hierocles and Philagrius and was included in a compilation of 265 jokes titled "Philogelos: The Laugh Addict". In the Greek version, a man complains to a slave-merchant that his new slave has died. The slave-merchant replies, "When he was with me, he never did any such thing!" In Mark Twain's humorous short story "A Nevada Funeral", two characters use a series of euphemisms for death including 'kicked the bucket' and 'departed to that mysterious country from whose
Cape parrot Cape parrot The Cape parrot ("Poicephalus robustus") or Levaillant's parrot is a large, temperate forest dwelling parrot of the genus "Poicephalus" endemic to South Africa. It was formerly grouped as a subspecies along with the savanna-dwelling brown-necked parrot "(P. fuscicollis fuscicollis)" and grey-headed parrot "(P. f. suahelicus)", but is now considered a distinct species. The Cape parrot is a short-tailed moderately large bird with a very large beak used to crack all sorts of hard nuts and fruit kernels, especially those of African yellowwood trees ("Podocarpus" spp.). This contrasts with the closely related savanna species ("Poicephalus fuscicollis") which feeds on