THEIR POWERS OF IMITATION. 395 



and to repeat them with astonishing exactness. Buffon 

 mentions a parrot who, having been taught to speak during 

 the passage by an old sailor, had so completely adopted his 

 gruff voice as to be mistaken for the weather-beaten tarpaulin 

 himself. Although the bird was afterwards presented to a 

 young lady, and no more heard the voice of its first instructor, 

 it did not forget his lessons, and nothing could be more ludicrous 

 than to hear it suddenly pass from the sweet tones of its fair 

 mistress to the rough accents of its first teacher. 



The grey parrot not only imitates the voice of man, but has 

 also a strong desire to do so, which he manifests by his atten- 

 tion in listening, and by the continuous efforts he makes to 

 repeat the phrases he has heard. He seems to impose upon 

 himself a daily task, which even occupies him during sleep, as 

 he speaki^ in his dreams. His memory is astonishing, so that 

 a cardinal once gave a hundred gold crowns for one of these 

 birds that correctly repeated a long prayer ; and M. de la Borde 

 told Buffon he had seen one that was fully able to perform the 

 duties of a ship's chaplain. 



All parrots are more or less susceptible of education, and, 

 particularly when caught young, grow very much attached to 

 the master that feeds them. Those that are sent to Europe 

 are generally taken from the nest, and have thus never expe- 

 rienced the sweets of freedom ; but they are also frequently 

 caught full grown. The American Indians know how to strike 

 them with small arrows, whose points are blunted with cotton, 

 so as to stun without killing them ; or else, under the trees on 

 which they perch, they light a fire of strong-smelling weeds, 

 whose vapours cause them to drop to the ground. These 

 captives are frequently extremely stubborn ; but blowing the 

 lumes of tobacco into their face until they fall asleep is an 

 infallible. remedy to cure them of their obstinacy, this operation 

 being so little to their taste that it need hardly ever be repeated 

 twice. 



Although pre-eminently tropical, like the colibris, several 

 parrots range far within the temperate zone, as they are found 

 in the Southern hemisphere at the Straits of Magellan and on 

 the Macquarie Islands, and in the Northern, in the neighbour- 

 hood of Cairo and in Kentucky, where the Carolina parrot is 

 often seen in great numbers during the summer. 



