386 CAROLINA PARROT. 



the image in the glass, and began to doze with great com- 

 posure and satisfaction. In this short space she had learnt to 

 know her name ; to answer, and come when called on ; to 

 climb up my clothes, sit on my shoulder, and eat from my 

 mouth. I took her with me to sea, determined to persevere 

 in her education ; but, destined to another fate, poor Poll, 

 having one morning, about daybreak, wrought her way through 

 the cage while I was asleep, instantly flew overboard and 

 perished in the Gulf of Mexico. 



The Carolina, or Illinois parrot (for it has been described 

 under both these appellations), is thirteen inches long, and 

 twenty- one in extent; forehead and cheeks, orange red; 

 beyond this, for an inch and a half, down and round the 

 neck, a rich and pure yellow ; shoulder and bend of the 

 wing, also edged with rich orange red. The general colour 

 of the rest of the plumage is a bright yellowish silky green, 

 with light blue reflections, lightest and most diluted with 

 yellow below ; greater wing-coverts and roots of the primaries 

 yellow, slightly tinged with green ; interior webs of the 

 primaries, deep dusky purple, almost black, exterior ones 

 bluish green ; tail, long, cuneiform, consisting of twelve 

 feathers, the exterior one only half the length, the others 

 increasing to the middle ones which are streaked along the 

 middle with light blue ; shafts of all the larger feathers, and 

 of most part of the green plumage, black ; knees and vent, 

 orange yellow ; feet, a pale whitish flesh colour ; claws, 

 black ; bill, white, or slightly tinged with pale cream ; iris 

 of the eye hazel ; round the eye is a small space without 

 feathers, covered with a whitish skin ; nostrils placed in an 

 elevated membrane at the base of the bill, and covered with 

 feathers ; chin, wholly bare of feathers, but concealed by those 

 descending on each side ; from each side of the palate hangs 

 a lobe or skin of a blackish colour ; tongue, thick and fleshy ; 

 inside of the upper mandible near the point, grooved exactly 

 like a file, that it may hold with more security. 



The female differs very little in her colours and markings 



