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soon learn to seek out the company of their friends or protectors of the human species. The brown thrush and mocking-bird become, in this way, extremely familiar, cheerful, and capriciously playful. The former, in particular, courts the attention of his master, follows his steps, complains when neglected, flies to him when suffered to be at large, and sings and reposes gratefully perched on his hand; in short, by all his actions he appears capable of real and affectionate attachment; and is jealous of every rival, particularly any other bird, which he persecutes from his presence with unceasing hatred. His petulant dislike to particular objects of less moment is also displayed by various tones and gestures, which soon become sufficiently intelligible to those who are near him, as well as his notes of gratulation and satisfaction. His language of fear and surprise could never be mistaken, and an imitation of his guttural, low tsherr, tsherr, on these occasions, answers as a premonitory warning when any danger awaits him, from the sly approach of cat or squirrel.

As I have now descended, as I may say, to the actual biography of one of these birds, which I raised and kept uncaged for some time, I may also add, that besides a playful turn for mischief and interruption, in which he would sometimes snatch off the paper on which I was writing, he had a good degree of curiosity, and was much surprised one day by a large springing beetle which I had caught and placed in a tumbler. On all such occasions, his looks of capricious surprise were very amusing; he cautiously approached the glass with fanning and closing wings, and in an under tone confessed his surprise at the address and jumping motions of the huge insect. At length he became bolder, and perceiving it had a relation to his ordinary prey of beetles, he, with some hesitation, ventured to snatch at the prisoner between temerity and playfulness. But when really alarmed or offended, he instantly flew to his loftiest perch, forbade all friendly approaches, and for some time kept up his low and angry tsherr. My

late friend, the venerable William Bartram, was also much amused by the intelligence displayed by this bird, and relates, that one which he kept, being fond of hard bread crumbs, found, when they grated his throat, a very rational remedy in softening them, by soaking them in his vessel of water; he likewise, by experience, discovered that the painful prick of the wasps on which he fed, could be obviated by extracting their stings. But it would be too tedious and minute to follow out these glimmerings of intelligence, which exist as well in birds as in our most sagacious quadrupeds.

LESSON LVI.

The Same, concluded. IDEM.

The remarkable talent of the parrot for imitating the tones of the human voice has long been familiar. The most extraordinary and well authenticated account of the actions of one of the common ash-colored species, is that of a bird which Colonel O'Kelly bought for a hundred guineas at Bristol. This individual not only repeated a great number of sentences, but answered many questions, and was able to whistle a variety of tunes. While thus engaged, it beat time with all the appearance of science; and possessed a judgment, or ear, so accurate, that, if by chance it mistook a note, it would revert to the bar where the mistake was made, correct itself, and, still beating regular time, go again through the whole with perfect exactness. So celebrated was this surprising bird, that an obituary notice of its death appeared in the General Evening Post for the 9th of October, 1802. In this account it is added, that, besides her great musical faculties, she could express her wants articulately, and give her orders in a manner approach

ing to rationality. She was, at the time of her decease, supposed to be more than thirty years of age. The colonel was repeatedly offered five hundred guineas a year for the bird, by persons who wished to make a public exhibition of her; but out of tenderness to his favorite, he constantly refused the offer.

The story related by Goldsmith of a parrot belonging to King Henry the Seventh, is very amusing, and possibly true. It was kept in a room in the palace of Westminster, overlooking the Thames, and had, naturally enough, learned a store of boatmen's phrases. One day, sporting somewhat incautiously, Poll fell into the river, but had rationality enough, it appears, to make a profitable use of the words she had learned, and accordingly vociferated, "A boat! twenty pounds for a boat!" This welcome sound, reaching the ears of a waterman, soon brought assistance to the parrot, who delivered it to the king, with a request to be paid the round sum so readily promised by the bird; but his majesty, dissatisfied with the exorbitant demand, agreed, at any rate, to give him what the bird should now award; in answer to which reference, Poll shrewdly cried, "Give the knave a groat!"

The docility of birds in catching and expressing sounds depends, of course, upon the perfection of their voice and hearing, assisted also by no inconsiderable power of memory. The imitative actions and passiveness of some small birds, such as goldfinches, linnets, and canaries, are, however, quite as curious as their expression of sounds. A Sieur Roman exhibited in England some of these birds, one of which simulated death, and was held up by the tail or claw without showing any active signs of life. A second balanced itself on the head, with its claws in the air. A third imitated a milkmaid going to market, with pails on its shoulders. A fourth mimicked a Venetian girl looking out at a window. A fifth acted the soldier, and mounted guard as a sentinel. The sixth was a cannoneer, with a cap on its head, a firelock on its shoulder,

and with a match in its claw discharged a small cannon. The same bird also acted as if wounded, was wheeled in a little barrow, as it were, to the hospital; after which it flew away before the company. The seventh turned a kind of windmill; and the last bird stood amidst a discharge of small fireworks, without showing any sign of fear.

A similar exhibition, in which twenty-four canary birds were the actors, was also shown in London in 1820, by a Frenchman. One of these suffered itself to be shot at, and falling down, as if dead, was put into a little wheelbarrow, and conveyed away by one of its comrades.

The docility of the canary and goldfinch is thus, by dint of severe education, put in fair competition with that of the dog; and we cannot deny to the feathered creation a share of that kind of rational intelligence exhibited by some of our saga. cious quadrupeds, an incipient knowledge of cause and effect far removed from the unimprovable and unchangeable destinies of instinct. Nature, probably, delights less in producing such animated machines than we are apt to suppose; and amidst the mutability of circumstances by which almost every animated being is surrounded, there seems to be a frequent demand for that relieving invention, denied to those animals which are solely governed by inflexible instinct.

The velocity with which birds are able to travel in their aërial element, has no parallel among terrestrial animals; and this powerful capacity for progressive motion is bestowed in aid of their peculiar wants and instinctive habits. The swiftest horse may perhaps proceed a mile in something less than two minutes; but such exertion is unnatural, and quickly fatal. An eagle, whose stretch of wing exceeds seven feet, with ease and majesty, and without any extraordinary effort, rises out of sight in less than three minutes, and therefore must fly more than thirty-five hundred yards in a minute, or at the rate of sixty miles in an hour. At this speed a bird would easily perform a journey of six hundred miles in a day, since ten hours

only would be required, which would allow frequent halts, and the whole of the night for repose. Swallows, and other migratory birds, might therefore pass from Northern Europe to the equator in seven or eight days. In fact, Adanson saw, on the coast of Senegal, swallows that had arrived there on the 9th of October, or eight or nine days after their departure from the colder continent. A canary falcon, sent to the Duke of Lerma, returned in sixteen hours from Andalusia to the Island of Teneriffe, a distance of seven hundred and fifty miles. The gulls of Barbadoes, according to Sir Hans Sloane, make excursions in flocks to the distance of more than two hundred miles after their food, and then return the same day to their rocky

roosts.

LESSON LXVII.

Picture of a Blind Man. JOHN WILSON.

WHY sits so long beside yon cottage door
That aged man, with tresses thin and hoar?
Fixed are his eyes in one continued gaze,
Nor seem to feel the sun's meridian blaze ;
Yet are the orbs with youth-like colors bright,
As o'er the iris falls the trembling light.
Changeless his mien; not even one flitting trace
Of spirit wanders o'er his furrowed face;
No feeling moves his venerable head :

He sitteth there an emblem of the dead!
The staff of age lies near him on the seat,
His faithful dog is slumbering at his feet,
And yon fair child, who steals an hour for play,
While thus her father rests upon his way,

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