THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



professional gentlemen, I might conveniently make 

 a fair experiment. 



" Since the foregoing was written, I have had an 

 opportunity, by the death of a tame Carolina Parra- 

 keet, to ascertain the fact of the poisonous effects of 

 their head and intestines on cats. Having shut up . 

 a cat and her two kittens, (the latter only a few 1 

 days old,) in a room with the head, neck, and whole 

 intestines of the Parrakeet, I found, on the next 

 morning, the whole eaten except a small part of the 

 bill. The cat exhibited no symptom of sickness ; 

 and, at this moment, three days after the experi- 

 ment has been made, she and her kittens are in their 

 usual health. Still, however, the effect might have 

 been different, had the daily food of the bird been 

 cockle burs, instead of Indian corn." 



We cannot help remarking, that this was rather a. 

 wanton and unfeeling experiment to try on so use- 

 ful an animal as the cat, 



" I was equally unsuccessful in my endeavours to • 

 discover the time of incubation or manner of building 

 among these birds. All agreed that they breed in 

 hollow trees ; and several affirmed to me that they 

 had seen their nests. Some said they carried in no 

 materials ; others that they did. Some made the 

 eggs white; others speckled. One man assured me 

 that he cut down a large beech tree, which was 

 hollow, and in which he found the broken fragments 

 of upwards of twenty Parrakeet eggs, which were 

 of a greenish yellow colour. The nests, though 



