CAROLINA PARROT, 



91 



luable animal. The seeds of the cypress tree and hackberry, as 

 well as beech nuts, are also great favorites with these birds; the 

 two former of which are not commonly found in Pennsylvania, and 

 the latter by no means so general or so productive. Here then 

 are several powerful reasons^, more dependant 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 Parakeets 

 occasionally feed. But I have my doubts whether their depreda- 

 tions in the orchard be not as much the result of wanton play and 

 mischief, as regard for the seeds of the fruit, which they are sup- 

 posed to be in pursuit of. I have known a flock of these birds 

 alight on an apple tree, and have myself seen them twist off the 

 fruit, one by one, strewing it in every direction around the tree, 

 without observing that any of the depredators descended to pick 

 them up. To a Parakeet which I wounded and kept for some con- 

 siderable time I very often offered apples, which it uniformly re- 

 jected; but burrs, or beech nuts, never. To another very beauti- 

 ful one which I brought from New Orleans, and which is now sit- 

 ting 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 deter- 

 mines their choice of country. For even in the states of Ohio, 

 Kentucky, and the Mississippi territory, unless in the neighbour- 

 hood of such places as have been described, it is rare to see them. 

 The inhabitants of Lexington, as many of them assured me, scarce- 

 ly 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 Tennesee river; 

 after this I saw no more till I reached Bayo St. Pierre, a distance 

 of several hundred miles; from all which circumstances I think we 

 cannot from the residences of these birds establish with propriety^ 



