CAROLINA PARROT. 
123 
I made in the months of March, April, May, and June ; 
and the great variety which I found in the colour of the 
plumage of the head and neck of both sexes, during 
the two former of these months, convinces me, that the 
young birds do not receive their full colours until the 
early part of the succeeding summer. 
While parrots and paroquets, from foreign countries, 
abound in almost every street of our large cities, 
and become such great favourites, no attention seems 
to have been paid to our own, which in elegance of 
figure and beauty of plumage is certainly superior to 
many of them. It wants indeed that disposition for 
perpetual screaming and chattering that renders some 
of the former pests, not only to their keepers, but to 
the whole neighbourhood in w^hich they reside. It is 
alike docile and sociable ; soon becomes perfectly fami- 
liar ; and, until equal pains be taken in its instruction, 
it is unfair to conclude it incapable of equal improve- 
ment in the language of man. 
As so little has hitherto been known of the disposi- 
tion and manners of this species, the reader will not, I 
hope, be displeased at my detailing some of these, in 
the history of a particular favourite, my sole companion 
in many a lonesome day’s march. 
Anxious to try the effects of education on one of 
those which I procured at Big Bone lick, and w hich was 
but slightly wounded in the wing, I fixed up a place 
for it in the stern of my boat, and presented it w ith 
some cockle burs, which it freely fed on in less than 
an hour after being on board. The intermediate time 
between eating and sleeping w r as occupied in gnawing 
the sticks that formed its place of confinement, in 
order to make a practicable breach ; w hich it repeatedly 
effected. When I abandoned the river, and travelled 
by land, I wrapt it up closely in a silk handkerchief, 
tying it tightly around, and carried it in my pocket. 
When I stopped for refreshment, I unbound my prisoner, 
and gave it its allowance, which it generally despatched 
with great dexterity, unhusking the seeds from the 
bur in a tw inkling ; in doing which it always employed 
