^^J^.^ Account of a Parrot hatched at tLotne. 



fince flie came into his pofTcffion ; and, as llie was then df 

 the full (v/tC, die niuft at Icaft have been live vcars of age. I 

 bcg-gcd him likcwife to be attentive during the next year, 

 and to obfervc whether one egg alone will produce, and whe- 

 ther the reft will be equally fruitful. 



IV. Injlances of fome Parrots ivh'ich have laid hi Europe. 



The parrots both of the old and new continent never pafs 

 the tropics, and fcem confined to a 2one of 23 dejirees on 

 each fide of the equator : in their wild Hate they never pafs 

 tlu'le limits, which nature fecms to have prefcribed to them. 

 When traafportcd beyond thcfc latitude^i, they live, and arc 

 fenfible to love, notwithlianding the diflerencc of climate. 

 We have foDie inftanccs therefore, but very rare, of parrots 

 producing voung in our temperate countries ; though it often 

 happens that they lay eggs without any germ. Bufton afl'erts, 

 on the tftUimony of the Gazette de Litterah^rc of the 17th of 

 November 1774, that JNI. de la Pigioniere had a male and a 

 female parrot in the town of Marmande, in Angumois, which 

 for five or fix years never failed to lav eggs that produced 

 young, which were reared by the father and the mother. Thefc 

 parrots were of the fpecies called the _/(? co, or afii- coloured 

 parrot of Guinea, Pjittacus cincreus feu fubcaruleus of Al- 

 drovandi. He quotes father Labat, who fpeaks of two par- 

 rots which fcveral times produced young at Paris; and the 

 abbefs of Beaumont- les-Tours, who had two young parrots 

 hatched in the month of January ; but the cold foon killed 

 them, 



Thefe are fingle fa&s which give us no information re- 

 fpcfting the habits of thefe birds either during the time of 

 their laying or incubation. We, however, no where find 

 that the Am.azon parrots, or any others of America, ever 

 produced in Eiirone. 



Though the climate of Rome is not lb cold as that of Paris, 

 as the mean temperature at the end of I^larch and the com- 

 Tnenecment of April is 17 degrees of Reaumur *, I am not of 

 opinion that this was the principal caufe of thefe parrots pro- 

 ducing ; as the fame thing mutt have often taken place in Sici- 

 ly, Malta, and other countries lying more to the fouth: but of 

 this we i)ave no inllance. I am therefore induced to think 

 that the parrots in queftion produced at Rome, becaufe they 

 had been long together, were exceed! nglv finxl of each other, 

 when they became acquainted, and ahvavs cnjoved the com- 

 pleteft liberty ; becaufe they were probably of the fame age, 



■* Tab. Mcteorolog. de Rome, par Tabbc Scarjullmi. 



and 



