The Green ParoJceet. 
215 
Macaos it is a great bird, and are very rare, and by tbe east coast 
they are not found, it is a fair© bird in colours ; their breasts are red as 
scarlet; from the middle of the bodie to the taile some are yellow, 
others greene, others blue, and through all the bodie they have 
scattering some greene, some yellow and blue feathers, and ordinarily 
every feather hath three or foure colours, and the taile is very long. 
The Indians esteeme them very much, and of their feathers they make 
very fine things, and their hangings for their swords. It is a very 
pleasant bird, they become very tame and domesticall, and speake very 
well if they be taught.” ( Purchas , vol. iv. p. 1804.) 
It is uncertain whether the confusion of pronouns in 
the foregoing passage is the fault of the translator, or 
whether it must be ascribed to the long exile of the 
writer from civilization and books of grammar. These 
macaws evidently made a very strong impression on the 
traveller. 
A Dutch traveller, whose description of the Gold 
Coast of Guinea is also included in Purchas’s collection of 
travels, mentions the little Parokeets, now so common in 
drawing-room aviaries 
“ The birds that are found there,” he writes, u are of divers colours, 
and are little birds like unto ours; first, there are blewe parrots, whereof 
are great store, which being young, and taken out of their nests, and 
made tame, having not flowne abroad, they are better to teach, and to 
learne to speake; but they will not prate so much as the greene Brasilian 
parrots doe. They have also another kind of greene birds as big as spar¬ 
rows, like the catalinkins of West India, but they cannot speake. These 
birds are called asuront, and by our Netherlander, called jparohites. 
They are taken with nets, as you use to take sparrowes. They keepe 
much in low land, where much come or millet groweth, for they eate 
much thereof. Those birds are ahvaies very kind one to the other; for 
when you put a male and a female in a cage, they will alwaies sit 
together without making any noyse. The female is of such a nature, 
that when she is coupled with the male, she respecteth him much, and 
letteth him sit on the right hand, setting her selfe on the left hand; 
and when he goes to eate, shee followeth him, and so they live together 
quietly, being almost of the nature of the turtle-doves. They are of 
a very fair© greene colour, with a spot of orange-tawnie upon their 
noses. There are another kind of parokiten, which are much like 
them, being of tbe same nature, and condition, but are of colour as red 
