CAROLINA PARROT. 
547 
donate Doves. If the gun thin their ranks, they hover 
over the screaming, wounded, or dying, and returning and 
flying around the place where they miss their compan- 
ions, in their sympathy seem to lose all idea of impend- 
ing danger. More fortunate in their excursions, they 
next proceed to gratify the calls of hunger, and descend 
to the hanks of the river, or the neighbouring fields in 
quest of the inviting kernels of the cockle burr,* and 
probably of the bitter-weed, f which they extract from 
their husks with great dexterity. In the depth of winter, 
when other resources begin to fail, they, in common with 
the Yellow-Bird, and some other Finches, assemble 
among the tall sycamores, £ and hanging from the ex- 
treme twigs, in the most airy and graceful postures, scat- 
ter around them a cloud of down, from the pendant balls, 
in quest of the seeds, which now afford them an ample 
repast. With that peculiar caprice, or perhaps appetite, 
which characterizes them, they are also observed to fre- 
quent the saline springs or licks to gratify their uncom- 
mon taste for salt. Out of mere wantonness, they often 
frequent the orchards, and appear delighted with the 
fruitless frolic of plucking apples from the trees, and 
strewing them on the ground untasted. So common is 
this practice among them, in Arkansas Territory, that 
no apples are ever suffered to ripen. They are also fond of 
some sorts of berries, and particularly of mulberries, 
which they eat piecemeal, in their usual manner, as they 
hold them by the foot. According to Audubon, they like- 
wise attack the outstanding stacks of grain in flocks, 
committing great waste ; and on these occasions, as well 
as the former, they are so bold or incautious as readily 
to become the prey of the sportsman in great numbers. 
* Xanthium strumarium. 
f Ambrosia , species. 
%Platanus occidentalis. 
