PARROT. 



889 



habits in a state of nature would naturally load us to 

 suppose this for a parrot in the woods is a very hard- 

 working creature ; and in order that it may find its 

 own food, and in so doing keep down that luxuriance 

 of the tropical fruit by which it would otherwise be 

 checked by the very excess of its own growth, it has 

 harder labour to perform than almost any other bird 

 which feeds upon vegetable matter. Any one who 

 looks at a stately tree, in that season when it is naked 

 of leaves, and the ramifications can be seen to their 

 ultimate terminations, must be aware how perfectly 

 beyond all the powers of arithmetic the buds of such 

 a tree are. But the trees of tropical forests are much 

 taller than ours: and, though the palms and several 

 others rise with a single bud, and have only a crown 

 of leaves, or more strictly speaking fronds, still there 

 are stately branchers which cover thousands of square 

 miles in the tropical countries. Many of the most 

 luxuriant of these grow in marshes, in the water of 

 slow running rivers, and even in the sea, so that they 

 are not accessible in any way but through the medium 

 of the air, and, except on the trees themselves, there 

 is no resting place for the foot of any inhabitant of 

 the air. Such places are the grand haunts of the 

 parrots, because in them there is a constant supply of 

 water and of heat sufficient for any kind of vegetable 

 growth, and thus they know no winter. Such places 

 are the head-quarters of many tribes of the parrots ; 

 and they are understood to breed at least twice in the 

 year, without any absolutely fixed season for the ope- 

 ration. Little, however, can be known of their eco- 

 nomy in such places, for the ground is impassable, 

 the air is pestilent to human beings, and a traveller 

 who should attempt to explore such a forest would 

 never return to publish the tale of his adventures. It 

 is understood, however, that even those species which 

 quit the woods seasonally in flocks, at least for part 

 of the day, live in pairs during their breeding times ; 

 and that, generally speaking, sitting on the eggs and 

 the feeding of the young until able to provide for 

 themselves, are the only domestic labours of the 

 birds. As was hinted, they nestle in the holes of 

 decayed trees. There are many such in these forests ; 

 because if there was not a decay proportionate to 

 the growth, the forest would soon monopolise 

 everything else, and end by choking itself. It is 

 highly probable that the parrots contribute not a 

 little to the ridding of those forests of the dead 

 trees, by enlarging the holes in their trunks, and so 

 letting in the rain, by which the tree is very speedily 

 reduced to dust. This is an exceedingly probable 

 inference from the disposition which they show to 

 gnaw and divide into chips every piece of wood which 

 they can reach. This is not done for the purpose of 

 gratifying their appetite, for none of them show the 

 least disposition to eat wood. It is, however, so very 

 general among them, and they themselves are so nu- 

 merous, that they must practise it in their natural 

 state, and it must answer some purpose in nature cor- 

 responding to the exertion which it calls for on their 

 part. It is clearly not a habit acquired in confine- 

 ment, neither is it the result of any attempt on their 

 part to regain the state of freedom. Parrots, if pro- 

 perly fed, are less impatient of confinement than 

 almost any other birds; and when a parrot has free 

 range of an apartment, it very soon begins to exercise 

 its powerful mandibles upon the chairs and other fur- 

 niture. We naturally look upon this as wanton- 

 ness ; but animals have no wanton habits. The law 



of material nature is upon them in everything they 

 do ; they have no power of resisting that law, and 

 therefore every natural operation which they per- 

 form answers some natural purpose, whether that 

 purpose happens to be known to us or not. 



Many accounts have been given of the loquacity 

 of parrots ; and some of them are very amusing, as 

 showing the power of imitation and the perfection of 

 execution hereafter to be noticed. We shall content 

 ourselves with little more than a single one, which 

 we give from personal observation. The writer of 

 this article, had a friend who received a green Ama- 

 zonian parrot from a naval officer, who had just re- 

 turned from the command of a frigate on the West 

 India station, during the time when the West Indian 

 seas were so much infested by pirates. This parrot 

 had been taken from a piratical vessel made prize of 

 by the frigate ; and as it. was docile, and actually 

 communicated some useful hints in the scraps of 

 Portuguese which it repeated, and sung and whistled 

 in loud and clear strains, it soon became a favourite 

 on board the frigate, and was not long in learning all 

 the pipings and words of command which were most 

 frequently repeated. 



On the evening of its arrival, its new master had a 

 dinner party, and, the parrot being a stranger, was 

 placed on a pier table at the lower end of the room. 

 From the time of its landing it had continued quite 

 silent ; and, as the giver had not said one word of its 

 powers, it was supposed to be a dumb parrot. The 

 party sat down to dinner with a good deal of glee 

 and hilarity, and the bird began to show more activity. 

 In a short time it piped the boatswain's whistle, till 

 all the apartment rung again ; and almost immedi- 

 ately after the pipe, if called in a hoarse stentorian 

 voice " Steady ! take in a little there," which some- 

 what astonished the party, as they were taking in 

 their dinner and wine. During the afternoon it kept 

 calling, " One point below!" " Thus." After a while 

 it treated them with a very tolerable repetition of the 

 Portuguese hymn, and concluded by a violent fit of 

 swearing in the same language. The age of this spe- 

 cimen when it came into the hands of the gentleman 

 alluded to was not known, neither is the writer ac- 

 quainted with the sequel of its history, but it was a 

 very amusing bird, though quite wayward and untract- 

 able. 



Though there are considerable differences be- 

 tween the sections and genera, into which the de- 

 scribers of them in detail have divided the parrot 

 family, yet there are certain general characters which 

 belong to the whole, and point them out as being 

 more distinct and true to a family likeness than per- 

 haps any other family of birds. The number of species 

 is so great, and so little is known of them, except 

 differences of size, shape, and colour, that the details 

 could not be made intelligible, or in the least inte- 

 resting to any ordinary reader ; we must therefore con- 

 fine our observations to a comparatively small number. 



Their general characters are : the bill short, thick, 

 swelling, very hard and strong, compressed, convex 

 in the outlines of both mandibles ; broad at the base of 

 the upper mandible, but compressed toward the tip, 

 which forms a hook over the end of the lower one, 

 very hard and sharp, and more or less awl-shaped at 

 the'point; it is also provided with a cere at the base; 

 the lower mandible is short, recurved upwards at its 

 extremity, and obtuse ; these mandibles close with 

 great force, and the lower one is provided with a set 



