The Hoary Parrot. 301 



(How d'ye Poll, how d'ye ?) Je suis malade, it replied, with 

 a doleful tone, stretching itself over the fire, Je suis malade. 

 This play of words without meaning is uncommonly whimsical, 

 and though not more empty than much other talk of another ckss 

 of bipeds, it is always more amusing. The parrot seems alsp to 

 receive a tincture of our inclinations and manners ; it loves or it 

 hates ; it has particular attachments, predilections, and caprices ; 

 it is the object of its own admiration and applause ; it becomes 

 joyous or sad ; it is melted by caresses and bills tenderly in re- 

 turn ; in a house of mourning, it learns to moan. The young 

 prince Leo, son of the Emperor Basil, was condemned to death 

 by his implacable father, whom the cries of the persons aroimd 

 him could not move, till, by chance, his parrot repeated several 

 times the words, Helas ! mon maitre Leon, (Alas ! my master 

 Leo,) which accents stung his barbarous heart and caused 

 him to see his son again, and return to him alibis former affection. 



The power of imitating exactly articulate discourse implies in 

 the parrot a peculiar and more perfect structure of organs ; and 

 the accuracy of its memory, though independent of the understand- 

 ing, manifests a closeness of attention and a strength of mechani- 

 cal recollection which no bird possesses in so high a degree. Ac- 

 cordingly all the naturalists have remarked the singular form of 

 its bill, its tongue, and its head. Its bill, round on its outside 

 and hollow within, has in some measure, the capacity of a mouth, 

 and allows the tongue to play freely ; and the sound, striking 

 against the circular border of the lower mandible, is therefore 

 modified as on a row of teeth, while the concavity of the upper 

 mandible reflects it like the palate ; and hence it does not utter 

 a whistling, but a full articulation. The tongue, which modulates 

 all sounds, is proportionably larger than in man, and would be 

 more valuable, were it not harder than flesh, and invested with a 

 strong, horny membrane. 



But this organization, though adjusted wdth skill, is still inferior 

 to the structure contrived to give an easy and powerful motion to 

 the upper mandible, and, at the same time, not to hinder its open- 

 ing. The muscles are not fixed to the root, where they should 

 have exerted no force ; nor to the sides, where they would have 

 closed the aperture. Nature has adopted a different plan ; at the 

 bottom of the bill are fixed two bones, which, extending on both 

 sides, and under the cheeks, form a continuation of it, similar in 

 form to the petery gold bones in man, except that their hinder ex- 

 tremity is not concreted into another bone, but loose. Thick 

 layers of muscles, sent off from the back of the head, and inserted 

 •in these bones, move them and the bilL 



