THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



101 



the great range of the Alleghany, it is seldom seen 

 farther north than the state of Maryland ; though 

 straggling parties have been occasionally observed 

 among 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 criteria 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. But 

 there are other reasons for this partiality equally 

 powerful, though hitherto overlooked, namely, cer- 

 tain peculiar features of country to which these 

 birds are particularly and strongly attached : these 

 are, low rich alluvial bottoms, along the borders of 

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