CAROLINA PARROT. 249 
the sides of the trée, holding fast by the claws and also by the bills, 
They appear tn be fond of sleep, and often retire to their holes during 
the day, probably to take their regular siesta. They are extremely 
sociable, and fond of each other, often scratching each other’s heads 
and necks, and always, at night, nestling as close as possible to each 
other, preferring, at that time, a perpendicular position, supported by 
their bill and'claws. In the fall, when their favorite cockle burs are 
ripe, they swarm along the coast or high grounds of the Mississippi, 
above New Orleans, for a great extent. At such times, they are killed 
and eaten by many of the inhabitants; though, I confess, I think their 
flesh very indifferent. Ihave several times dined on it from neces- 
sity, in the woods; but found it: merely passable, with all the sauce 
of a keen appetite to recommend it. 
A very general opinion prevails that the brains and integtines of 
the Carolina Paroquet are a sure and fatal poison to cats. 1 had de- 
termined, when at Big Bone, to put this to the test of experiment ; and 
for that purpose collected the brains and bowels of more than a dozen 
of them. But after close search, Mistress Puss was not to be found, 
being engaged, perhaps, on more agreeable business. I left the 
medicine with Mr, Colquhoun’s agent, to administer it at the first op- 
portunity, and write me the result; but I have never yet heard from 
him. A respectable lady near the town of Natchez, and on whose 
word J can rely, assured: me, that she herself had made the experi- 
ment, and that, whatever might be the cause, the cat had actually died 
either on that or the succeeding day. A French planter near Bayou 
Fourche pretended to account to me for this effect by positively assert- 
ing that the seeds of the cockle burs, on which the Paroquets so 
eagerly feed, were deleterious to cats; and thus their death was pro- 
duced by eating the intestines of the bird. These matters might 
easily have been ascertained on the spot, which, however, a combina- 
tion of trifling circumstances prevented me from doing. I several 
times carried a dose of the first description in my pocket till it became 
insufferable, without meeting with a suitable patient on whom, like 
other professional gentlemen, I might conveniently make a fair experi- 
ment. 
Iwas equally unsuccessful in my endeavors to discover the time 
of incubation or manner of building among these birds. All agreed 
that they breed in hollow trees; and several affirmed to me that they 
had seen their nests. Some said they carried in no materials; others, 
that they did. Some made the eggs white; others, speckled. One 
man assured me that he cut down a large beech-tree, which was hol- 
low, and in which he found the broken fragments of upwards of twenty 
Paroquets’ eggs, which were of a preenish yellow color. The nests, 
though destroyed in their texture by the falling of the tree, appeared, 
he said, to be formed of small twigs glued to each other, and to the 
side of the tree, in the manner of the Chimney Swallow. He added, 
that if it were the proper season, he could point out to me the weed 
from which they procured the gluey matter. From all these contra- 
dictory accounts nothing certain can be deduced, except that they 
build in companies, in hollow trees. That they commence incubation 
late in summer, or very early in spring, I think highly probable, from 
the numerous dissections I made in the months of March, April, May, 
