504 



AUnORA PARROT. 



plete plumage, and the parent no longer regularly 

 attended it. This young Parrot was of a bright- 

 green colour; the wings mixed with red, blue, and 

 violet feathers, and the tips of those near the neck 

 yellow and red : those on the head green, with a 

 yellow stripe towards the bill : those on the thighs 

 yellow. After this period the male and female 

 sometimes fed it alternately, though their regular 

 attendance had ceased. 



I cannot dismiss the history of the Amazon 

 Parrot without observing that it appears to yield 

 to no other kind in docility, memory, and powers 

 of articulation; and to this species, in all proba- 

 bility, belonged the marvellous Parrot so solemnly 

 commemorated by Sir William Temple, and quoted 

 by Locke, in his celebrated work on the Human 

 Understanding. 



" I had a mind to know (says Sir William 

 Temple), from Prince Maurice's own mouth the 

 account of a common, but much credited story, 

 that I had heard so often from many others, of an 

 old Parrot he had in Brasil during his government 

 there, that spoke, and asked, and answered com- 

 mon questions like a reasonable creature; so that 

 those of his train there generally concluded it to 

 be witchery or possession; and one of his chaplains, 

 who had lived long afterwards in Holland, would 

 never from that time endure a Parrot, but said 

 they all had a Devil in them. I had heard many 

 particulars of this story, and assevered by people 

 hard to be discredited, which made me ask Prince 

 Maurice what there was of truth in it. He said, 



