CAROLINA PARROT. 155 



ance along the shores of the Ohio and Mississippi, so much so 

 as to render the wool of those sheep, that pasture where it most 

 abounds, scarcely worth the cleaning, covering them with one 

 solid mass of burrs, wrought up and imbedded into the fleece, 

 to the great annoyance of this valuable animal. The seeds of 

 the cypress-tree and hackberry, as well as beech-nuts, are also 

 great favourites with these birds; the two former of which are 

 not commonly found in Pennsylvania, and the latter by no 

 means so general or so productive. Here then are several pow- 

 erful reasons, more dependent on soil than climate, for the pre- 

 ference given by these birds to the luxuriant regions of the 

 west. Pennsylvania, indeed, and also Maryland, abound with 

 excellent apple orchards, on the ripe fruit of which the Paro- 

 quets occasionally feed. But I have my doubts whether their 

 depredations in the orchard be not as much the result of wanton 

 play and mischief, as regard for the seeds of the fruit, which 

 they are supposed to be in pursuit of. I have known a flock 

 of these birds alight on an apple-tree, and have myself seen 

 them twist off the fruit, one by one, strewing it in every di- 

 rection around the tree, without observing that any of the de- 

 predators descended to pick them up. To a Paroquet which I 

 wounded, and kept for some considerable time, I very often 

 offered apples, which it uniformly rejected; but burrs, or beech- 

 nuts never. To another very beautiful one, which I brought 

 from New Orleans, and which is now sitting in the room beside 

 me, I have frequently offered this fruit, and also the seeds se- 

 parately, which I never knew it to taste. Their local attach- 

 ments also prove that food more than climate determines their 

 choice of country. For even in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, 

 and the Mississippi territory, unless in the neighbourhood of 

 such places as have been described, it is rare to see them. The 

 inhabitants of Lexington, as many of them assured me, scarcely 

 ever observe them in that quarter. In passing from that place 

 to Nashville, a distance of two hundred miles, I neither heard 

 nor saw any, but at a place called Madison's lick. In passing 

 on, I next met with them on the banks and rich flats of the 



