THE NORTHWEST PARROT. 
833 
of these boats went the captain and Lawton; while in 
the stern-sheets of the second reposed the master and 
our indefatigable doctor, with his small-bore Kentucky 
rifle to keep him company. Some of us also took the 
tomtit, (a boat smaller even than the dingy,) and pulled 
over to Shag Lock, with a heavy ship’s musket and 
revolver each, where we soon commenced blazing away 
among the unfortunate shags and northwest parrots, with 
an energy of action and destructiveness of aim that 
promised to fill our boat before long. 
Though I had pulled in from the ship through hun- 
dreds of this latter bii'd while feeling the way for her, I 
have, until now, neglected to mention them, simply be- 
cause it was not until our landing on Shag Lock that wo 
were enabled to get a close view of them. I have, since 
my return to the United States, searched through more 
than one Avriter on birds, hoping to find a description of 
this particular rarity, but without success. In the shape 
of its bill it approaches the puffin, and, in the arrange- 
ment of its head-feathers, the little parrakeet-auk; but in 
other respects it diftei’s widely from both of these birds. 
The opposite sketch is a mathematical drawing of the 
male and female, one-sixth life-size. I must therefore 
conclude that it is, at any rate, a rare specimen of the 
feathered tribe, and hence well worthy of a passing 
notice. The male is about the size of a large teal-duck, 
is covered with dense masses of A^ariously-coloured 
feathers, and has the head and bill of a parroty (hence 
the name given it by whalers,) surmounted, in the case 
of the female, by a rooster-tail-like crest of several 
inches in length, and, in the case of the male, adorned 
