THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



105 



very place of most imminent danger. The gun is 

 kept at work ; eight or ten, or even twenty, are 

 killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if 

 conscious of the death of their compariions, sweep 

 over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, but 

 still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few 

 remain alive that the farmer does not consider it 

 worth his while to spend more ammunition. I 

 have seen several hundreds killed in this way in the 

 course of a few hours." 



" To a Parrakeet," continues Wilson, " which I 

 wounded and kept for some considerable time, I very 

 often offered apples, which it uniformly rejected ; but 

 burs, or beech nuts, never. To another very beau- 

 tiful one, which I brought from New Orleans, and 

 which is now sitting in the room beside me, I have 

 frequently offered this fruit, and also the seeds 

 separately, which I never knew it to taste. Their 

 local attachments, also, prove that food, more than 

 climate, determines their choice of country. For even 

 in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, and the Mississippi 

 territory, unless in the neighbourhood of such places 

 as have been described, it is rare to see them. The 

 inhabitants of Lexington, as many of them assured 

 me, scarcely ever observe them in that quarter. In 

 passing from that place to Nashville, a distance of 

 two hundred miles, I neither heard nor saw any, 

 but at a place called Madison's lick. In passing 

 on, I next met with them on the banks and rich 

 flats of the Tennessee river : after this, I saw no 

 more till I reached Bayo St Pierre, a distance of 



