102 



THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



creeks, covered with a gigantic growth of sycamore 

 trees, or button-wood ; deep, and almost impene- 

 trable swamps, where the vast and towering cypress 

 lift their still more majestic heads ; 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 

 Parrakeets. A still greater inducement is the supe- 

 rior abundance of their favourite fruits. That food 

 which the Parrakeet 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 and Mississippi, so 

 much so, as to render the wool of those sheep that 

 pasture where it most abounds, scarcely worth the 

 cleaning, covering them with one solid mass of 

 burs, wrought up and imbedded into the fleece, to 

 the great annoyance of this valuable animal." 



Audubon says these are afso very troublesome to 

 the manes and tails of horses, and that they also 

 stick so thickly to the clothes, as to prevent a person 

 from walking with any kind of ease. He says the 

 Parrakeet alights upon the bur, and plucks it from 

 the stem with its bill, takes it from the latter with 

 one foot, in which it turns it over until the joint is 

 properly placed to meet the attacks of the bill, 

 when it bursts it open, takes out the fruit, and 

 allows the shell to di'op. In this manner, a flock 

 of these bh^ds, having discovered a field ever so well 

 filled Avith these plants, will eat or pluck off all their 



