PARROT. 



399 



from the male. After examining numerous specimens, 

 the following appear to he the principal differences : 

 The yellow on the neck of the female does not de- 

 scend quite so far ; the interior vanes of the primaries 

 are brownish instead of black, and the orange-red on 

 the bend and edges of the wing- is considerably 

 narrower ; in other respects the colours and uimkings 

 are nearly the same. The young birds of the )<!<- 

 ceding rear, of both sexes, arc generally destitute of 

 the yellow on the head and neck until about the 

 beginning 1 or middle of March, having these parts 

 wholly green, except the front and checks, which are 

 orange-red in them as in the full-grown birds. To- 

 wards the middle of March the yellow begins to 

 appear, in detached feathers, interspersed among the 

 green, varying in different individuals. In some, 

 which I have killed about the last of that month, only 

 a few green feathers remained among the yellow, and 

 these were fast assuming the yellow tint; for the 

 colour changes without change of plumage." 



Wilson was not able to ascertain, by personal 

 inspection, the exact position of the nests of these 

 birds, or the length of time which the female sits ; 

 but he made rather an interesting 1 experiment on the 

 education of one. The specimen which he used for 

 this purpose was but slightly wounded in the wing, 

 and readily ate the seeds of cockle-burrs almost as 

 soon as it was taken. In travelling through the 

 woods, he bound it up in a handkerchief, and carried 

 it in his pocket, but loosed and fed it always when he 

 rested. He must, however, be allowed to tell part 

 of his own story : " In recommitting it to ' durance 

 vile' we generally had a quarrel, during which it fre- 

 quenth' paid me in kind for the wound I hud inflicted, 

 and for depriving it of liberty, by cutting and almost 

 disabling- several of my fingers with its sharp and 

 powerful biil. The path through the wilderness 

 between Nashville and Natchez is often bad beyond 

 description. There are dangerous creeks to swim, 

 miles of morass to struggle through, rendered almost 

 as gloomy as night by a prodigious growth of timber, 

 and an underwood of canes and other evergreens, 

 while the descent into these sluggish streams is often 

 ten or fifteen feet perpendicular into a bed of clay. 

 In some of the worst of these places, where I had, as 

 it were, to fight my way through, the parakeet 

 frequently escaped from my pocket, obliging me to 

 dismount and pursue it through the worst of the 

 morass before I could regain it. On these occasions 

 I was several times tempted to abandon it, but I 

 persisted in bringing it along. When at night I 

 encamped in the woods, I placed it on the baggage 

 beside me, where it usually sat, with great composure, 

 dozing and gazing at the fire, till morning. In this 

 manner I carried it upwards of a thousand miles in 

 my pocket, where it was exposed all day to the 

 jolting of the horse, but regularly liberated at meal- 

 times and in the evening." On arriving at the house 

 of a friend, Wilson placed it in a cage under the 

 portico, and its call-note speedily attracted a number 

 of its fellows. One of these was wounded, and 

 placed beside the former, and the attachment which 

 they showed to each other was truly wonderful in 

 birds ; and when the last-caught one died, the other 

 appeared quite disconsolate for some days. We 

 must again refer to Wilson for the catastrophe of this 

 most interesting tale of animal history : " On reach- 

 ing New Orleans," says he, " I placed a looking-glass 

 beside the place where she usually sat, and the 



instant she perceived her image all her former fond- 

 ness seemed to return, so that she could scarcely 

 absent herself from it a moment. It was evident 

 that she was completely deceived. Always when 

 evening drew on, and often during the day, she laid 

 her head close to the image in the glass, and began 

 to doze with great composure and satisfaction. In 

 this short space she had learned to know her name 

 to answer and come when called on to climb up my 

 clothes sit on my shoulders and eat from my 

 mouth. I took her with me to sea, determined to 

 persevere in her education ; but, destined to another 

 fate, poor Poll, one morning, about daybreak, 

 wrought her way through the cage while I was 

 asleep, instantly flew overboard, and perished in the 

 Gulf of Mexico." 



There is still another species of parakeet, which is 

 worthy of notice, as being the only one with a por- 

 tion of the cheeks naked, which occurs in any part of 

 the eastern continent or its islands. This is 



The Solstitial Parakeet (P. solstitialis}. It is a 

 native of Africa, especially of those fertile regions 

 which lie on the west coast between the equator and 

 the fifteenth degree of south latitude, but it has been 

 transported to Brazil, and is naturalised there in the 

 wild state. It is not a large species, being only about 

 eleven inches in length. The upper part is yellow, 

 with reddish borders to the feathers ; and the top of 

 the head, the front, the cheeks, the fore neck, and 

 the under parts of the body, are orange ; the primary 

 quills are margined with green, and have blue tips ; 

 the two middle feathers of the tail are green, with 

 blue tips, and the lateral ones are blue, with grey 

 borders ; the bill and the feet are grey. The female 

 has the plumage in great part yellow ; but the fore- 

 head, the sides of the head, and a portion of the 

 under part, are reddish orange ; the rump, the upper 

 tail-coverts, and the feathered part of the legs, are 

 brown mottled with green and ye\\ow ; and the quills 

 and tail-feathers are green, with blue borders. The 

 young birds have the rump and the belly red ; the 

 head, the neck, and the breast, mottled with reddish ; 

 and the upper coverts of the tail green. It is neces- 

 sary to attend to these distinctions of sex and age, 

 because the three have sometimes been described as 

 three distinct species. 



We shall now proceed to the PARAKEETS properly 

 so called, which have no naked skin round the eyes, 

 and which, generally speaking, have the two middle 

 feathers of the tail much longer than the others, on 

 account of which latter circumstance they are some- 

 times called " arrow-tailed " birds. They are all 

 natives of the eastern continent ; their bodies, gene- 

 rally speaking, partake more of the parrot form than 

 the American ones do. Some of them are exceed- 

 ingly beautiful in their plumage ; the greater part are 

 gentle and docile in their manners ; and some at 

 least can be taught to articulate a considerable 

 number of words. The species are exceedingly 

 numerous ; and, therefore, all that we can possibly do 

 is to enumerate a few of them as specimens of the 

 whole ; and we may remark in passing, that, as they 

 trench on the confines of some of the other sections of 

 the family, it is extremely difficult to give anything like 

 accuracy to a minute and circumstantial list of them. 



If we are to consider them as a genus, the following 

 may be said to be their leading characters : the bill 

 thickish, but not so large in proportion as in the mac- 

 caws ; the upper mandible widened at the base, 



