148 JUNGLE ISLAND 



tuft fell, and he found to his great astonishment 

 that the leaves were green parrots, too. He had 

 been able to recognize one of them because it 

 happened to move. 



The natives capture half -grown birds to sell. 

 Even so young they are good fighters. John 

 English made a parting gift to my small daughter 

 of a newly captured young parrot. We are all 

 very fond of Lorita, but we take pains not to 

 come too close to her stout beak. The sailor 

 who tried to make friends with her on the N^w 

 York boat, the janitor who "wanted to see if 

 she would peck" — and found out — not to men- 

 tion numerous hungry neighbor cats, have learned 

 to respect her ability to defend herself. In her 

 native jungle she could probably use her beak 

 to even better advantage. 



Lorita (Fig. 64) wears a dash of red on her 

 forehead and shows bands of red on her wings and 

 tail when she spreads them, but when she is 

 sitting on her perch her color is the soft green of 

 young leaves. She prefers to eat seeds, just as 

 she did in the jungle. She does not care for 

 fruits as she used to, and she has developed a 

 fondness for cheese. 



She knows a very few words and several 

 whistled tunes and some of the calls the children 

 make. Her voice is loud even when vshe makes 

 herself ridiculous trying to imitate a canary. Once 

 in a long while, when she is wakened early in the 



