CAROLINA PARROT. 
155 
ance along the shores of the Ohio and Mississippi, so much so 
as to render the wool of those sheep, that pasture where it most 
abounds, scarcely worth the cleaning, covering them with one 
solid mass of burrs, wrought up and imbedded into the fleece, 
to the great annoyance of this valuable animal. The seeds of 
the cypress-tree and hackberry, as well as beech-nuts, are also 
great favourites 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 pow- 
erful reasons, more dependent on soil than climate, for the pre- 
ference 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 Paro- 
quets occasionally feed. But I have my doubts whether their 
depredations 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 supposed to be in pursuit of. I have known a flock 
of these birds alight on an apple-tree, and have myself seen 
them twist ofi" the fruit, one by one, strewing it in every di- 
rection around the tree, without observing that any of the de- 
predators descended to pick them up. To a Paroquet which I 
wounded, and kept for some considerable time, I very often 
offered apples, which it uniformly rejected; but burrs, or beech- 
nuts never. To another very beautiful one, which I brought 
from New Orleans, and which is now sitting in the room beside 
me, I have frequently offered this fruit, and also the seeds se- 
parately, which I never knew it to taste. Their local attach- 
ments also prove that food more than climate determines their 
choice of country. For even in the states of Ohio, Kentucky, 
and the Mississippi territory, unless in the neighbourhood of 
such places as have been described, it is rare to see them. The 
inhabitants of Lexington, as many of them assured me, scarcely 
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 ffats of the 
