The variety and multitude of parrots I might almost call innumerable. Every different species differs distinctly in form, voice, and plumage. Those with which I am best acquainted are the paracauteè, the paracaubaỹ, the iribaya, the aruaỹ, the tuî, the mbaracana, the quaà, or quacamayo, the caninde, the catita, or kikilk; and others whose names have slipped my memory. I will relate what is most remarkable respecting those which I know most of. The paracauteè signifies the true and legitimate parrot, which excels the rest in sense and docility, and can imitate the sounds of men and beasts with greatest ease and success. It is equal in size to a young pigeon: its feathers are green, but yellow, red, and blue on the head, wings, and tail. I had in my possession a bird of this kind, which I called Don Pedro, and which articulately pronounced many words, and even whole sentences, in the Spanish, Guarany, and Abiponian languages, and learnt to sing a little Spanish song admirably. Moreover he could imitate violent coughing, laughing, weeping, barking, and an hundred other things so dexterously that you would have sworn it was a man you heard. Whenever I travelled on foot or on horseback, he sat upon my shoulder, always chatty, always playful. When tired of his noise or his weight, I gave him to one of the Indians to carry—he angrily bit the man's ear, and flew back to me. He laughed very loud for a long time at an old Indian woman, whom we met riding on an ass. Though he reposed all day long on my shoulder, yet about sun-set, like fowls, he felt a desire for rest, began to grow angry, and, by clapping his wings, and repeatedly biting my ear, admonished me to stop the journey. Next day when I mounted my horse again, he was extremely delighted, and did nothing but sing and laugh. When I stayed in the town, he sometimes walked up and down a very long rope suspended from two pillars outside the house. When I entered the dining-room he would fly after me, and whilst we were dining, ran about the table, and always flew angrily to bite the Indian who came to take away the rest of the food with the dishes. He tasted, snatched, and swallowed any food that he could lay hold of. He sometimes walked about the court-yard, rubbing and sharpening his beak in the sand, which he often swallowed by way of medicine. Seeing me caress a smaller parrot of another species, filled with envy he attempted to pierce the bird with his beak; but softened by a little coaxing, he not only suffered it to sleep under his wings, but ever afterwards treated it as a pupil, or rather as a son. What the older bird pronounced with a deep voice, the younger repeated in a slenderer one. The Guaranies tie all their tame parrots, by one foot, to a long pole, to prevent them from flying away. These chains did not please me: I therefore clipped one wing of my parrots a little to prevent them from flying long, or far away, leaving them the full liberty of their legs.