302 The Hoary Parrot. 



The bill of the parrot is very strong, with which it very easily 

 cracks nuts of the red fruits ; it gnaws the wood, and even bends 

 or wrenches the bars of its cage, if they be slender, or if it be 

 tired of confinement. It uses its bill, oftener than its claws, in 

 climbing and suspending itself ; it also holds by the bill in de- 

 scending, as if it were a third foot, which steadies its motion ; 

 it also serves to break its fall. It is a second organ of touch, and 

 is equally useful with its toes in scrambling and clenching. 



The mobility of its upper mandible gives it a power which no 

 other birds have, of chewing its food. In those, whether of the 

 granivorous or carnivorous tribes, the bill is like a hand which 

 throws the food into the gizzard, or an arm which sphts or tears 

 it. The parrot seizes the piece sideways, and gnaws deliberate- 

 ly. The lower mandible has little motion, but that from right to 

 left is most perceptible ; and this is often performed when the 

 bird is not eating, which has made it be supposed to ruminate. 

 In such cases it probably only whets the edge of the mandible, 

 with which it cuts and bites its aliments. 



The parrot discovers hardly any choice in its food ; it lives in 

 its native country on almost every kind of fruit or grain. In the 

 domestic state, it eats whatever is presented ; but flesh, which it 

 would rather prefer is extremely hurtful to it, and occasions an 

 unnatural longing which prompts it to suck and gnaw its feathers, 

 and pluck them one by one from every part that its bill can reach. 

 This species of parrot is particularly subject to that disease ; it 

 tears the feathers from its body, and even from its beautiful tail, 

 which never afterwards recovers the same bright red as at first.. 



Sometimes after moulting, this parrot is observed to become 

 marbled with white and rose color ; occasioned either by some 

 distemper, or by advanced age. 



It is uncommon for parrots to propagate in our temperate cli- 

 mates ; but they frequently lay addled eggs. There are some in- 

 stances, however, of parrots being reared in France. M. de la 

 Pigeonier had a pair in the town of Marmande in Agenois, which 

 hatched regularly each spring for five or six years, and their young 

 lived and were educated by their parents. Each hatch consisted 

 of four eggs, three of Avhich succeeded. They were shut up in a 

 room with nothing but a barrel open at the top and filled with 

 saw dust. 



