130 COMMON ASH-COLOURED PARROT. 



Common Ash-coloured or Hoary Parrot. No foreign 

 bird is better known than this, and chiefly from its 

 bearing our climate without injury, and becoming often- 

 times very loquacious. It modulates its voice with great 

 flexibility, and learns easily to repeat almost everything 

 it hears. These birds are found throughout the forests 

 of almost all the western coast, and of several parts of 

 the interior of Africa. Many remarkable stories have 

 been related of their faculty of talking, or rather of 

 imitating the sounds of the human voice. The most sin- 

 gular, and, at the same time, apparently the best authen- 

 ticated, are the two following. A Parrot belonging to 

 King Henry the Seventh, who then resided in his palace 

 at Westminster, by the river Thames, had learned to 

 speak many words from the passengers as they took 

 boat. One day, sporting on its perch, the bird fell into 

 the water, and immediately exclaimed, " Boat ! boat ! 

 twenty pounds for a boat ! " A waterman happening to 

 be near the place where the Parrot was floating, took it 

 up, and restored it to the king. The bird was known to 

 be a favourite, the man, therefore, insisted that he ought 

 to have a reward more equal to his service than his 

 trouble. It was, at length, agreed to leave the recom- 

 pense to the decision of the Parrot : " Give the knave 

 a groat!" screamed the bird, the instant the reference 

 was made. Willughby tells us of a Parrot, which, when 

 any person said to it, " Laugh, Poll, laugh," laughed 

 accordingly; and the instant afterwards exclaimed aloud, 

 " What a fool, to make me laugh ! "The late Colonel 

 O'Kelly had a Parrot for which he gave a hundred 

 guineas. This bird could sing several songs, repeat a 

 great number of sentences, and answer many questions. 

 The Colonel was several times offered five hundred gui- 

 neas for it, but he retained it to the last. 



