&8 JAMAICA PARROT. 



wonder why their favourites have become so scarce; or have even 

 vanished altogether from scenes where they once abounded. 



No, there seems no help for it. Man, be he pale-faced, or black- 

 faced, is lord paramount over the creation, it would appear; and woe 

 betide the creature that sets itself in antagonism to him, or, which 

 amounts to the same thing, he imagines takes up such a position in 

 his regard. He has no pity where his selfish interests are concerned, 

 and takes no notice of any feelings but his own in the matter. " Those 

 rascally Parrots," for instance, he will say, " suck my oranges, and I 

 shoot them." "If you do so at every season of the year," we reply, 

 " there will soon be none of them left to damage your property, or 

 anybody else's;" "and a good job, too," he answers, viciously; where- 

 upon we retire from the contest, feeling that to spend more time 

 talking with such a person would amount to little less than a crime, 

 be an utter folly at all events ; and so the White-fronted Parrots must 

 be left to take what care they can of themselves. 



There is one little shred of hope, one little crumb of comfort, left to 

 us after all. The Parrots are quite as wise in their generation as our 

 own Rooks, or the Great White Cockatoos of the Australian continent ; 

 and when about to descend, be it on a fruit or a maize crop, are 

 cunning enough to post sentries on the tree tops round the scene of 

 their marauding expedition, which sentinels give the signal on the 

 slightest suspicion o£ danger; when the whole flock rise at once into 

 the air with deafening clamour, in the case of the Cockatoos; and 

 with the loudest and shrillest cries they are capable of uttering in 

 that of the Jamaica Parrots, and hie them away with what speed they 

 may to safer quarters ; returning when the threatened peril has passed 

 to finish their interrupted banquet. 



Persecution has undoubtedly sharpened the wits of many threatened 

 races, and postponed for an indefinite period, if it has not altogether 

 averted, the day when the last member of them shall follow his 

 companions to that bourne from which nor bird, nor beast, nor man 

 himself has ever yet returned. Parrots, like Rooks, soon learn to 

 " smell powder," as country people say ; to recognise the lethal 

 weapon at all events that deals death among them from a distance, 

 they seem also to have learned to measure ; for we have often noticed, 

 when in Australia, that the Cockatoos, Lemon-crested, or Long-billed, 

 never attempted to rise until we were almost within gunshot, when 

 the sentinels would give the alarm; and the flock obeying the signal, 

 would hurry away without the loss of a feather, screaming in terrified 

 response to the report of our double-barrelled gun. 



There are of course still mountain fastnesses and inaccessible ravines 



