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THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



+ Centurus carolinensis, Linn. 

 PLATE CCLXXVIIL— Male, Female, and Young. 



Doubtless, kind reader, you will say, while 'looking at the figures of 

 Parakeets represented in the plate, that I spared not my labour. I never do, 

 so anxious am I to promote your pleasure. 



These birds are represented feeding on the plant commonly called the 

 Cockle-bur. It is found much too plentifully in every State west of the 

 Alleghanies, and in still greater profusion as you advance towards the 

 Southern Districts. It grows in every field where the soil is good. The 

 low alluvial lands along the Ohio and Mississippi are all supplied with it. 

 Its growth is so measured that it ripens after the crops of grain are usually 

 secured, and in some rich old fields it grows so exceedingly close, that to 

 make one's way through the patches of it, at this late period, is no pleasant 

 task. The burs stick so thickly to the clothes, as to prevent a person from 

 walking with any kind of ease. The wool of sheep is also much injured by 

 them; the tails and manes of horses are converted into such tangled masses, 

 that the hair has to be cut close off, by which the natural beauty of these 

 valuable animals is impaired. To this day, no useful property has been 

 discovered in the cockle-bur, although in time it may prove as valuable 

 either in medicine or chemistry as many other plants that had long been 

 considered of no importance. 



Well, reader, you have before you one of these plants, on the seeds of 

 which the Parrot feeds. It alights upon it, plucks the bur from the stem 

 with its bill, takes it from the latter with one foot, in which it turns it over 

 until the joint is properly placed to meet the attacks of the bill, when it 

 bursts it open, takes out the fruit, and allows the shell to drop. In this 

 manner, a flock of these birds, having discovered a field ever so well filled 

 with these plants, will eat or pluck off all their seeds, returning to the place 

 day after day until hardly any are left. The plant might thus be extirpated, 

 but it so happens that it is reproduced from the ground, being perennial, and 

 our farmers have too much to do in securing their crops, to attend to the 

 pulling up the cockle-burs by the roots, the only effectual way of getting rid 

 of them. 



The Parrot does not satisfy himself with cockle-burs, but eats or destroys 



