THE CAROLINA PARROT. 149 
time in confinement, throwing so much light upon 
their peculiar manners, that we cannot forbear in- 
serting it: 
“Anxious to try the effect of education on one of 
those which I procured at Big Bone Lick, and which 
was but slightly wounded in the wing, I fixed up a 
place for it in the stern of my boat, and presented 
it with some Cockle Burs, which it freely fed on in 
less than an hour after being on board. The inter- 
mediate time between eating and sleeping was occu- 
pied in gnawing the sticks that formed its place of 
confinement, in order to make a practicable breach, 
which it repeatedly effected. When I abandoned 
the river, and travelled by land, I wrapped it up 
closely in a silk handkerchief, tying it tightly around, 
and carried it in my pocket. When I stopped for 
refreshment, [ unbound my prisoner, and gave it its 
allowance, which it generally despatched with great 
dexterity, unhusking the seeds from the bur in a 
twinkling; in doing which it always employed its 
left foot to hold the bur, as did several others that I 
kept for some time. In recommitting it to ‘durance 
vile,’ we generally had a quarrel, during which it 
frequently paid me in kind for the wound [ had in- 
flicted, and for depriving it of liberty, by cutting 
and almost disabling several of my fingers with its 
sharp and powerful bill. The path through the wil- 
derness 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 
13* 
