74 INTELLECTUAL AND IMITATIVE 



Now would he, like Peter Pindar's Jackdaw, stop 

 to " peep knowingly into a marrowbone ; " at another 

 moment, he would fly in at the window of some 

 house or shop, where he would pry through all 

 the apartments, and into every hole and corner, as 

 if he were the master of it. Again, if he felt 

 himself fatigued, or if, perchance, his fancy struck 

 him to do so, he would whip upon the head or 

 shoulder of any passenger — man, woman, or child — 

 just as a Londoner would pop into a hackney coach 

 or a cabriolet, as a means of transportation from 

 one end of the tow^n to the other. But, whilst thus 

 following out the bent of his amusement, he never 

 lost sight of his more solid interests ; for, by a 

 certain hour of the day, he was sure to find his 

 way to that part of the town where the fruit market 

 was held, and there, like the Bashaw of some 

 Turkish province, he went about helping himselfi 

 from all the baskets, the owners of which, by their- 

 reception of him, seemed to consider themselves- 

 highly honoured by his thus condescending to 

 plunder them, and he generally returned to the 

 government-house so gorged, that he required a 

 siesta of some considerable duration before he was 

 able to entertain the company with the utterance 

 of his every day facetise. 



Parrots are sometimes extremely quick in pick- 

 ing up certain words that happen to strike their 

 ears, and this they often do very untowardly, so 

 as afterwards to repeat them with an apparently 

 mischievous intent ; of which, however, they ought 



