250 CAROLINA PARROT. 
and June; and the great variety which I found in the color of the 
plumage of the head and‘neck -f both sexes, during the two former 
of these months, convinces me ‘hat the young birds do not receive 
their full colors until the early part of the succeeding summer.* 
While Parrots and Paroquets, from foreign countries, abound in 
ost every street of our large cities, and become such great favor- 
ites, no attention seems to have been paid to our own, which, in 
elegante of figure, and beauty of plumage, is certainly superior to 
many of them. ‘It wants, indeed, that disposition for perpetual 
screaming and chattering that renders some of the former pests, not 
only to their keepers, but to the whole neighborhood in which they 
reside. It is alike docile and sociable; soon becomes perfectly 
familiar; and, until equal pains be taken in its instruction, it is unfair 
to conclude it incapable of equal improvement:in the language of man. 
As so little has hitherto been known of the disposition and manners 
of this species, the reader will not, I hope, be displeased at my detail- 
ing some of these, in the history of a particular favorite, my sole 
companion in many a lonesome day’s march, and of which the figure 
in the plate is a faithful resemblance. : 
Anxious to try the effects of education on one of, those which I 
procured at Big Bone Lick, ‘and which was but slightly wounded in 
the wing, I fixed up a place for it inthe stern of my boat, and presented 
it with some cockle burs, which it freely fed on in less than an hour 
after being onboard. The intermediate time between eating and 
sleeping was occupied in gnawing the sticks that formed its place of 
confinement, in order to make a practicable breach ; which it repeatedly 
effected. When I abandoned the river, and travelled by land, I 
wrapped it up closely in a silk handkerchief, tying it tightly around, 
and carried it in my’pocket. When I stopped for refreshment, 1 
unbound my prisoner, and gave it its allowance, which it generally 
despatched with great dexterity, unhusking the seeds from the bur 
in a twinkling; in doing which, it always employed its left foot to 
hold the bur, as did'several others that I kept for some time. I began 
to think that this might be peculiar to the whole tribe, and that the 
whole were, if I may use the expression, left-footed ; but, by shvoting 
a number afterwards while engaged in eating mulberries, I found 
sometimes the left, sometimes the right, foot stained with the fruit, the 
other always cléan;,from which, and the constant practice of those 1 
kept, it appears, that, like the human species in the use of their hands, 
they do not prefer one or the other indiscriminately, but are either 
left or right-footed. But to return to my prisoner: In recommitting it 
* Mr. Audubon’s information on their manner of breeding is as follows :— 
“ Their nest, or the place in which they deposit their eggs, is simply the bottom of 
such cavities in trees as those to which they usually retire at night. Many females 
ee their eggs together.’ I am of opinion that the number of eggs which each 
individual lays is two, although I have not been able absolutely to assure myself 
of this. They are nearly round, of a rich greenish white. The young are at first 
covered with soft down, such as is seen on young Owls.”’ 
It may be remarked that most of the Parrots, whose nidification we are 
acquainted with, build in hollow trees, or holed banks. Few make a nest for 
themselves, bit lay the eggs on the bare wood or earth; and when the nest is 
built outward as by other birds, it is of a slight and loose structure. The eggs are 
always whit? — Ep. . 
