MUBDER DISCOVERED THROUGH A PARROT. 
5 
I’ll flatten him like sole-leather in a twinkling but the brave 
parrot still snapped' and tore, and screamed murder. Hand- 
fuls of his beautiful plumage were torn out, but they could 
not still his voice, nor abate his courage. At last the poor 
bird darted through the door of his cage, and swept through 
the room with his heavy wings, incessantly uttering the dread- 
ful word, while the affrighted murderers, she with the iron 
candlestick (the candle had been buffeted out), and he with the 
terrible flat-faced hammer, hurrying after and chasing the poor 
bird, with no better light than the moon gave through the green 
curtain at the window. Through the window presently the 
heavy hammer went crashing, and out at the hole darted the 
parrot through the quiet streets, over the housetops, startling 
the good people of Nuremberg in their beds with its appalling 
cry. 
Daybreak found the parrot perched on the cross hi the mar- 
ket-place, ragged, bleeding, and forlorn. For awhile it would 
sit in silence, and then rising heavily would make the circuit of 
the market-cross, shrieking the last words it had heard its 
master utter. Everybody noticed the bird, some shook their 
heads and looked grave, others laughed and treated it as a joke. 
At last, an old woman who dealt in grapes, and who lived 
opposite, recognized the bird as belonging to Herr Wouter. 
This led to an inquiry. Carl asserted, and his wife affirmed, that 
Herr W outer had gone out late the preceding night, and had 
not yet returned. Madame Schnop’s lacerated hands, however, 
was a difficulty that could not be got over, especially as medical 
evidence clearly proved that the flesh had been torn with the 
beak of a bird. Besides this, when the man and wife were 
confronted with the ragged parrot, it exhibited such unmistak- 
able tokens of rage, and fluttered its wings, and kept crying 
“Murder, murder!” so fiercely, that presently the woman fell 
on her knees and confessed the crime, where the money was 
hid, and that the body of Herr W outer was in the washhouse 
chimney. 
The paragon of parrots, however, seems to have been one 
domiciled at Hampton Court, and specially mentioned by that 
pains-taking naturalist Mr. Jesse, who reports its sayings and 
doings in the words of the sister of its owner, for whose truth- 
fulness he vouches. It seems to have been a female bird, and 
her laugh is described as most extraordinary as well as infec- 
tious, especially when in the midst of her laughter she cries 
out, “ Don’t make me laugh so, — I shall die, I shall die,” and 
