112 



THE CAROLINA PARROT. 



is green ; but towards autumn a frontlet of carmine 

 appears. Two years, however, are passed before 

 the male or female are in full plumage/' 



Audubon has represented in his splendid illustra- 

 tions, a female with two supernumerary feathers in 

 the tail, which he only considers an accidental 

 variety. 



" While Parrots and Pairakeets, from foreign 

 countries, abound in almost every street of our 

 large cities, and become such great favourites, no 

 attention seems to have been paid to our own, 

 which, in elegance of figure and beauty of plumage, 

 is certainly superior to many of them. It wants, 

 indeed, that disposition for perpetual screaming 

 and cliattering, that renders some of the former 

 pests, not only to their keepers, but to the whole 

 neighbourhood in which they reside. It is alike 

 docile and sociable ; soon becomes perfectly fami- 

 liar; and, until equal pains be taken in its instruction, 

 it is unfair to conclude it incapable of equal improve- 

 ment in the language of man, 



" As so little has hitherto been known of the 

 disposition and manners of this species, the reader 

 Avill not, I hope, be displeased at my detailing some 

 of these, in the history of a particular favourite, my 

 sole companion in many a lonesome day's march. 



" Anxious to try the effects of education on one 

 of those which I procured at Big Bone lick, and 

 which was but slightly wounded in the wing, I 

 fixed up a place for it in the stern of my boat, and 

 presented it with some cockle burs, which it freely 



