82 THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



some time. I began to think that this might be peculiai 

 to the whole tribe, and that the whole were, if I may use 

 the expression, left-footed; but, by shooting a number 

 afterwards while engaged in eating mulberries, I found 

 sometimes the left, sometimes the right, foot stained with 

 the fruit, the other always clean ; from which, and the con- 

 stant practice of those I "kept, it appears, that, like she 

 human species in the use of their hands, they do not prefer 

 one or the other indiscriminately, but are either left or 

 right-footed. 



But to return to my prisoner : In recommitting it to 

 " durance vile," we generally had a quarrel ; during whicb 

 it frequently paid me in kind for the wound I had inflicted, 

 and for depriving it of liberty, by cutting and almost dis* 

 abling several of my fingers with its sharp and powerful 

 bill. The path through the wilderness between Nashville 

 and Natchez is in some places bad beyond description. 

 There are dangerous creeks to swim, miles of morass to 

 struggle through, rendered almost as gloomy as night by a 

 prodigious growth of timber, and an underwood of canes 

 and other evergreens ; while the descent into these sluggish 

 streams is often ten or fifteen feet perpendicular, into a bed 

 of deep clay. In some of the worst of these places, where 

 I had, as it were, to fight my way through, the Paroquet 

 frequently escaped from my pocket, obliging me to dis- 

 mount and pursue it through the worst of the morass before 

 \ eould regain it. On these occasions, I was several time$ 



