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We know not what we are, you and I and the rest of us; but if we had had the application, patience, and ambition of the average parrot, we should be greater men. But some people say that parrots are mean, self-centred, and malignant.

My ears tingled as I listened. But not a feathered parrot in the carping lot of them could deny that Miss Manners had beauty and wit enough to keep them all at bay. Hers was not an English beauty: every line of her face and pose of her body proclaimed her of that noble type of Maryland women, distinctly American, over which many Englishmen before and since have lost their heads and hearts.

Indeed, having issued out of the Aswattha tree, the deity of fire had entered the heart of Sami. This new abode of Agni was divulged by a parrot. The gods thereupon proceeded to the spot. Enraged with the conduct of the parrot, the deity of blazing flames cursed the whole parrot race, saying, "Ye shall from this day be deprived of the power of speech."

The backwoodsmen confidently assert that they have found as many as twenty eggs of a greenish white in a single hollow of a cypress-tree; and as it is generally supposed, judging from the known habits of other species of this genus, that the Carolina Parrot lays only two eggs, but few naturalists doubt that these birds nest in companies.

He had brought with him an ara parrot, as he called it, which, young as it was, had already grown to a considerable size. Though it had not yet obtained its full plumage, its colours were very beautiful. Its body was of a flaming scarlet, while the wings were red, yellow, blue, and green; its tail, which was of great length, being scarlet and blue.

The sixth had only risen upon his elbow: he was deadly pale, and the blood-stained bandage round his head told that he had recently been wounded, and still more recently dressed. I remembered the man who had been shot and had run back among the woods in the great attack, and doubted not that this was he. The parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John's shoulder.

"There's an old darky preacher up at Richmond who says it does, and I'm sure I think more of his old fog-horn blasts than I do of your parrot tones. Ah! Si, this is the last time that I shall ever fool with good raw material. However, don't let this bother you. As I remember, you used to sing well.

Before Keep could interrupt him, like a parrot reciting its lesson, he exclaimed explosively: "My name's Van Warden. I'm Harry Van Warden." He seemed as little convinced of the truth of his statement as though he had announced that he was the Czar of Russia. It was as though a stage-manager had drilled him in the lines.

Three modes of flight were his to choose between three modes involving as many nice distinctions, plus a possible difference with the master. He could run away in his ship, run away with her, or as a last resort he could sacrifice his slops, his bedding, his pet monkey and the gaudy parrot that was just beginning to swear, and run from her. Which should it be? It was all a toss-up.

His bright colors fade, perhaps; the eyes of his mind are turned toward brighter and more ornamental things. What creature but a parrot devotes such long hours to the acquirement of perfection in each trivial stage of progress? What creature remembers so faithfully and so well?