82 
THE CAROLINA PARROT. 
some time. I began to think that this might be peculiar 
to the whole tribe, and that the whole were, if I may use 
the expression, left-footed; but, by shooting a number 
afterwards while engaged in eating mulberries, I found 
sometimes the left, sometimes the right, foot stained with 
the fruit, the other always clean ; from which, and the con- 
stant practice of those I kept, it appears, that, like the 
human species in the use of their hands, they do not prefer 
one or the other indiscriminately, but are either left or 
right-footed. 
But to return to my prisoner : In recommitting it to 
u durance vile,” we generally had a quarrel ; during which 
it frequently paid me in kind for the wound I had inflicted, 
and for depriving it of liberty, by cutting and almost dis- 
abling several of my fingers with its sharp and powerful 
bill. The path through the wilderness between Nashville 
and Natchez is in some places bad beyond description. 
There are dangerous creeks to swim, miles of morass to 
struggle through, rendered almost as gloomy as night by a 
prodigious growth of timber, and an underwood of canes 
and other evergreens ; while the descent into these sluggish 
streams is often ten or fifteen feet perpendicular, into a bed 
of deep clay. In some of the worst of these places, where 
I had, as it were, to fight my way through, the Paroquet 
frequently escaped from my pocket, obliging me to dis- 
mount and pursue it through the worst of the morass before 
I could regain it. On these occasions, I was several times 
