378 CAROLINA PARROT. 



the valleys of the Juniata ; and, according to some, even 

 twenty-five miles to the north-west of Albany, in the state of 

 New York.* But such accidental visits furnish 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. 



From these circumstances of the northern residence of this 

 species, we might be justified in concluding it to be a very 

 hardy bird, more capable of sustaining cold than nine-tenths 

 of its tribe ; and so I believe it is, — having myself seen 

 them, in the month of February, along the banks of the 

 Ohio, in a snow storm, flying about like pigeons, and in full 

 cry. 



The preference, however, which this bird gives to the 

 western countries, lying in the same parallel of latitude with 

 those eastward of the Alleghany mountains, which it rarely or 

 never visits, is worthy of remark ; and has been adduced, by 

 different writers, as a proof of the superior mildness of climate 

 in the former to that of the latter. Bat 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 almost 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 favourite 

 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 

 * Barton's Fragments, &c. p. 6. Introduction. 



