Page:Natural History, Birds.djvu/209

196 has been the most ludicrous thing possible. She sings just like a child, and I have more than once thought it was a human being; and it was ridiculous to hear her make what one should call a false note, and then say, "Oh, la!" and burst out laughing at herself, beginning again quite in another key. She is very fond of singing "Buy a Broom," which she says quite plainly; but in the same spirit as in calling the cat, if we say, with a view to make her repeat it, "Buy a broom," she always says, "Buy a brush" and then laughs, as a child might do when mischievous. She often performs a kind of exercise, which I do not know how to describe, except by saying that it is like the lance exercise. She puts her claw behind her, first on one side and then on the other, then in front, and round over her head, and whilst doing so, keeps saying, "Come on! come on!" and, when finished, says, "Bravo! beautiful!" and draws herself up. Before I was as well acquainted with her as I am now, she would stare in my face for some time, and then say, "How d'ye do, ma'am?" this she invariably does to strangers. One day I went into the room where she was, and said, to try her, "Poll, where is Payne gone?" and, to my astonishment, and almost dismay, she said, "Down stairs." I cannot, at this moment, recollect anything more that I can vouch for myself, and I do not choose to trust to what I am told; but from what I have myself seen and heard, she has almost made me a believer in transmigration.'"

The species alluded to in this sprightly note, Mr. Jesse has not named; we may conjecture it to have been the Grey African Parrot (Psittacus