2()0 HISTORY OF 



call upon us to stop, promising, if we gave her a comli, or a 

 looking-glass, that she would make her parrot sing and dance to 

 entertain us. If we agreed to her request, as soon as she had 

 yronouiieed some words to the bird, it began not only to leap 

 and skip on the perch on which it stood, but also to talk and to 

 whistle, and imitate the shoutings and exclamations of the Bra- 

 zilians when they prepare for battle. In brief, when it came 

 into the woman's head to bid it sing, it sang ; to dance, it danced. 

 But if, contrary to our promise, we refused to give the woman 

 the little present agreed on, the parrot seemed to sympathize in 

 her resentment, and was silent and immoveable ; neither could 

 we, by any means, provoke it to move either foot or tongue." 



This sagacity, which parrots show in a domestic state, seems 

 also natural to them in their native residence among the woods. 

 They live together in flocks, and nuitually assist each other 

 against other animals, either by their courage or their notes of 

 warning. They generally breed in hollow trees, where they 

 make a round hole, and do not line their nests within. If they 

 find any part.of a tree beginning to rot from the breaking off of 

 a branch, or any such accident, this they tiike care to scoop, and 

 to make rhe hole sufficiently wide and convenient ; but it some- 

 times happens that they are content with the hole which a wood- 

 pecker has wrought out with gi'eater ease before them ; and in 

 this they prepare to hatch and bring up their young. 



They lay two or three eggs ; and probably the smaller kind 

 may lay more ; for it is a rule that universally holds through 

 nature, that the smallest animals are always the most prolific ; 

 for being, from their natural weakness, more subject to devasta- 

 tion, Nature finds it necessary to replenish the species by supe- 

 rior fecundity. In general, however, the number of their eggs 

 IS stinted to two, like those of the pigeon, and they are about the 

 same size. They are always marked with little specks, like 

 those of a partridge ; and some travellers assure us, that they 

 are always found in the trunks of the tallest, straightest, and the 

 argest trees. The natives of those countries, who have little 

 else to do, are very assiduous in spying out the places where the 

 parrot is seen to nestle, and generally come with great joy to in- 

 form the Europeans, if there be any, of the discovery. As those 

 birds have iilways the greatest docility that are taken young, 

 such a nest is often considered as worth tuking some trouble to 



