CAROLINA PARROT 



95 



favorites, 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 chattering 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 per- 

 fectly familiar; and until equal pains be taken in its instruction, 

 it is unfair to conclude it incapable of equal improvement in the 

 language of man. 



As so little has hitherto been known of the disposition and 

 manners of this species, the reader will not, I hope, be displeased 

 at my detailing some of these, in the history of a particular favorite, 

 my sole companion in many a lonesome day's march, and of which 

 the figure in the plate is a faithful resemblance. 



Anxious to trv 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 burrs, which it freely fed on in less 

 than an hour after being on board. The intermediate time be- 

 tween eating and sleeping was occupied in gnawing the sticks that 

 formed its place of confinement, in order to make a practicable 

 breach; which it repeatedly effected. When I abandoned the river 

 and travelled by land, I wrapt it up closely in a silk handkerchief^ 

 tying it tightly around, and carried it in my pocket. When I stop- 

 ped for refreshment, I unbound my prisoner, and gave it its allow* 

 ance, which it generally dispatched with great dexterity, unhusk- 

 ing the seeds from the burr in a twinkling; in doing which it al- 

 ways employed its left foot to hold the burr, as did several others 

 that I kept for some time. I began to think that this might be pe- 

 culiar to the whole tribe, and that the whole were, if I may use the 

 expression, left-footed; but by shooting a number afterwards while 

 engaged in eating mulberries, I found sometimes the left, some- 

 times the right foot stained with the fruit; the other always clean; 



