342 ANIMALS OF EGA. Chap. V. 



therefore I need not describe them in detail, but I do 

 not recollect to have seen any notice of their intelligence 

 and confiding disposition under domestication, in which 

 qualities my pet seemed to be almost equal to parrots. 

 I allowed Tocano to go free about the house, contrary to 

 my usual practice with pet animals ; he never, however, 

 mounted my working-table after a smart correction 

 which he received the first time he did so. He used to 

 sleep on the top of a box in a corner of the room, in the 

 usual position of these birds, namely, with the long tail 

 laid right over on the back, and the beak thrust under- 

 neath the wing. He ate of everything that we eat ; beef, 

 turtle, fish, farinha, fruit, and was a constant attendant 

 at our table — a cloth spread on a mat. His appetite 

 was most ravenous, and his powers of digestion quite 

 wonderful. He got to know the meal hours to a nicety, 

 and we found it very difficult, after the first week or two, 

 to keep him away from the dining-room, where he had 

 become very impudent and troublesome. We tried to 

 shut him out by enclosing him in the back -yard, which 

 was separated by a high fence from the street on which 

 our front door opened, but he used to climb the fence 

 and hop round by a long circuit to the dining-room, 

 making his appearance with the greatest punctuality 

 as the meal was placed on the table. He acquired the 

 habit, afterwards, of rambling about the street near our 

 house, and one day he was stolen, so we gave him up 

 for lost. But, two days afterwards, he stepped through 

 the open doorway at dinner hour, with his old gait, 

 and sly, magpie-like expression, having escaped from 

 the house where he had been guarded by the person who 



