The largest kind is the macaw. It is a huge, clumsy _thing_, with a head out of all proportion to its body, (“great head, little wit;”) its plumage is for the most part red, interspersed with green and blue. The noise which it makes is most horribly discordant; and its loudest yell is very like an Indian war-whoop, (one of Mr. Cooper’s;) yet is this monster a great favorite in the West Indies, and, as you pass the residences of the inhabitants, you often see three or four of these ugly wretches clambering awkwardly up the piazzas, and uttering their hoarse, scolding cries, ten times more grating to the ear than the objurgations of a Xantippe, heard above the shrieks of her castigated offspring. The hardihood of these birds is surprising. There was one of them on board of a small vessel, in which it was my ill fortune to voyage from the mainland to the island of Barbadoes. Mr. Macaw, like a militia major in red and blue uniform, would strut about on the lower rigging, and, as soon as he could get near enough to the ear of a sailor, would utter one of his shrillest and most appalling yells. Jack Tar, in his summary method of dealing vengeance, would fetch him a blow with a handspike, that would send him flapping to the quarter-deck; perhaps, with an utter disregard of decorum and discipline, into the very face and eyes of the surly old captain, who, in his rage, would beat him soundly; yet would the valiant and stalwart feathered marine regard those lusty strokes no more than would a pet goldfinch the taps of his lady’s fan. Some species of parrots exist in almost every region; the smallest and most beautiful, however, are found only in tropical countries. They are seldom seen near thickly populated places, but can be procured with facility in the woods adjacent, where they live in tolerable fellowship with their mischievous neighbors, the monkeys.