THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



103 



seeds, returning to the place day after day, until 

 hardly any are left. The plant might thus be extir- 

 pated ; but it so happens that it is reproduced fi-om 

 the ground, being perennial, and our farmers have 

 too much to do in securing their crops, to attend to 

 the pulling up of the cockle burs by the roots, the 

 only effectual way of getting rid of them. PaiTa- 

 keets are fond of sand in a surprising degree, and, 

 on that account, are fi-equently seen to alight in 

 flocks along the gravelly banks about the creeks 

 and rivers, or in the ravines of old fields in the 

 plantations, where they scratch with bill and claws, 

 flutter and roll themselves in the sand, and pick up 

 and swallow a certain quantity of it. For the same 

 purpose they also enter the holes dug by our King- 

 fisher. They are fond of saline earth, for which 

 they visit the different licks interspersed in our 

 woods. 



" The seeds of the cj-press tree and hackberry, 

 as well as beech nuts, are also great favourites with 

 these birds ; the two former of which are not com- 

 monly found in Pennsylvania, and the latter by no 

 means so general or so productive. Here, then, are 

 several powerful resisons, more dependent on soil 

 than climate, for the preference given by these birds 

 to the luxuriant regions of the west. Pennsylvania, 

 indeed, and also Maryland, abound with excellent 

 apple orchards, on the ripe fruit of which the Parra- 

 keets occasionally feed. But I have my doubts 

 whether their depredations in the orchai'd be not as 

 much the result of wanton play and mischief, as 



