334 NATT7RAL HISTORY OF AFRICA. 



Hath softened that obduracy, and made 

 Unlooked-for gladness in the desert place 

 To save the perisbing." 



The Creeks and Romans became acquainted with th€ 

 parrot kind, in consequence of certain species of these birds 

 having been imported from the East soon after Alexander' 

 Indian expedition. The Alexandrian parrot, especially, so 

 remarkable for its elegant form and docile disposition, is 

 generally supposed to have been brought to Europe about 

 that time from the island of Ceylon, the ancient Tabrobane. 

 In the reign of Nero, the Romans introduced other specie* 

 from ditferent quarters of Africa. They were highly prised 

 by that luxurious people, who lodged them in superb cages 

 of silver, ivory, and tortoise-shell ; and the price of a parrot 

 in those days frequently exceeded that of a slave. Nor did 

 Ovid think it beneath him to write a lengthened elegy on 

 the death of Corinna's parrot, — a bird, which, in the love it 

 bore its mistress, seems to have emulated that of the dying 

 Greek for his country : — 



" Clamavit moriens lingua, Corinna, vale ! , 



It is only in these degenerate days that the keeping ot a 

 cockatoo is brought forward in a court of justice in proof of 

 an alienated or imbecile mind.* We trust, that in some 

 instances, at least, such inference may be fairly classed as 

 a " non sequitur." 



One of the earliest imported of the African species ap- 

 pears to have been the gray or ash-coloured parrot {Psit- 

 tacus crithacus), still remarkable for its easy loquacity and 

 general imitative powers. To this species probably be- 

 longed the individual mentioned by CjeUus Rhodoginus, and 

 which belonged to Cardinal Ascanius. " I cannot," says 

 that author, " omit an extraordinary wonder seen in our 

 times. This was a parrot at Rome, belonging to Cardinal 

 Ascanius, who purchased it for a hundred gold pieces, and 

 which, in the most articulate and uninterrupted manner, 

 recited the Apostles' Creed as well as the best reader could 

 have done, and which, as a most extraordinary and won- 

 derful thing, I could not pass unnoticed." 



* See the case of Dxindonald versns Roy, as lately reported at length 

 Iq the Scotch newspapers. 



