CAROLINA PARROT. 547 



tionate Doves. If the gun thin their ranks, they hover 

 over the screaming, wounded, or dying, and returning and 

 flying around the place where they miss their compan- 

 ions, in their sympathy seem to lose all idea of impend- 

 ing danger. More fortunate in their excursions, they 

 next proceed to gratify the calls of hunger, and descend 

 to the banks of the river, or the neighbouring fields in 

 quest of the inviting kernels of the cockle burr,* and 

 probably of the bitter-weed, t which they extract from 

 their husks with great dexterity. In the depth of winter, 

 when other resources begin to fail, they, in common with 

 the Yellow-Bird, and some other Finches, assemble 

 among the tall sycamores, t and hanging from the ex- 

 treme twigs, in the most airy and graceful postures, scat- 

 ter around them a cloud of down, from the pendant balls, 

 in quest of the seeds, which now afford them an ample 

 repast. With that peculiar caprice, or perhaps appetite, 

 which characterizes them, they are also observed to fre- 

 quent the saline springs or lichs to gratify their uncom- 

 mon taste for salt. Out of mere wantonness, they often 

 frequent the orchards, and appear delighted with the 

 fruitless frolic of plucking apples from the trees, and 

 strewing them on the ground untasted. So common is 

 this practice ar.ong them, in Arkansas Territory, that 

 no apples are ever suffered to ripen. They are also fond of 

 some sorts of berries, and particularly of mulberries, 

 which they eat piecemeal, in their usual manner, as they 

 hold them by the foot. According to Audubon, they like- 

 wise attack the outstanding stacks of grain in flocks, 

 committing great waste ; and on these occasions, as well 

 as the former, they are so bold or incautious as readily 

 to become the prey of the sportsman in great numbers. 



* Xanthium strumarium. | Ambrosia, species. XPlatanus ocddentalis. 



