CAROLINA PARROT. Q47 
and, according to some even twenty-five miles to the north-west of 
Albany, in the state of New York.* But such accidental visits fur- 
nish no certain criterion by which to judge of their usual extent of 
range, —those aerial voyagers, as well as others who navigate the 
deep, being subject to be cast away, by the violence of the elements, on 
distant shores and unknown countries. pa : ; 
From these circumstances of the northern residence of this species, 
we might be justified in concluding it to be avery hardy bird, more 
capable of sustaining cold than nine tenths of its tribe; and so I be- 
lieve it is,—'having myself seen them, in the month of February, 
along the banks of the Ohio, in asnow storm, flying about like Pigeons, 
and in full cry. 
The preference, however, which this bird gives to the western coun- 
tries, lying in the same parallel of latitude with those eastward of the 
Alleghany Mountains, which it rarely or never visits, is worthy of re- 
mark; and has been adduced, by different writers, as a proof of the 
superior mildness of climate in the former to that of the latter. But 
there are other reasons for this partiality equally powerful, though 
hitherto overlooked; namely, certain peculiar features of country to 
which these birds are particularly and strongly attached; these are, 
low, rich, alluvial bottoms, along the borders of creeks, covered with 
a gigantic growth of sycamore-trees, or button wood; deep, and al- 
most impenetrable swamps, where the vast and towering cypress lifts 
its still more majestic head; and those singular salines, or, as they are 
usually called, licks, so generally interspersed over that country, and 
which are regularly and eagerly visited by the Paroquets. A still 
greater inducement is the superior abundance of their favorite fruits. 
That food which the Paroquet prefers to all others, is the seeds of the 
cockle bur, a plant rarely found in the lower parts of Pennsylvania or 
New York; but which unfortunately grows in too great abundance 
along the shores of the Ohio and Mississippi ; so much so as to render 
the wool of those sheep that pasture where it most abounds, scarcely 
worth the cleaning, covering them with one solid mass of burs, 
wrought up and embedded into the fleece, to the great annoyance of 
this valuable animal. The seeds of the cypress-tree and hackberry, 
as well as beech nuts, are also great favorites with these birds; the 
two former of which are not commonly found in Pennsylvania, and 
the latter by no means so general or so productive. Here, then, are 
several powerful reasons, more dependent on soil than climate, for 
the preference given by these birds to the luxuriant regions of the 
west. Pennsylvania, indeed, and also Maryland, abound with excel- 
lent apple orchards, on the ripe fruit of which the Paroquets occasion- 
‘ally feed. But Ihave my doubts whether their depredations in the 
orchard be not as much the result of wanton play and mischief, as re- 
gard for the seeds of the fruit, which they are supposed to be in pursuit . 
of:, Ihave known a flock of these birds alight on an apple-tree, and 
have myself seen them twist off the fruit, one by one, strowing it in every 
direction around the tree, without observing that any of the depreda- 
tors descended to pick them up. To a Paroquet, which I wounded 
and kept for some considerable time, J very often offered apples, which 
’ Barton's Fragments, &e: p. 6. Introduction. 
