Parrots from all lands lived and quarreled together in a large room, and they there made such a loud screaming, that in order to stand it out one must have been one of their own relations. Better be among the silent, dejected, stealthy, hissing, shining snakes, than in company with parrots! The former might kill the body, but the latter the soul. Twilight came on, and drove me out of the Zoological Garden each time I was there, and before I had seen all its treasures. Would that I might return there yet a third time and remain still longer! A TERRIBLY STRANGE BED. The most difficult likeness I ever had to take, not even excepting my first attempt in the art of Portrait-painting, was a likeness of a gentleman named Faulkner. As far as drawing and coloring went, I had no particular fault to find with my picture; it was the _expression_ of the sitter which I had failed in rendering--a failure quite as much his fault as mine. Mr. Faulkner, like many other persons by whom I have been employed, took it into his head that he must assume an expression, because he was sitting for his likeness; and, in consequence, contrived to look as unlike himself as possible, while I was painting him. I had tried to divert his attention from his own face, by talking with him on all sorts of topics. We had both traveled a great deal, and felt interested alike in many subjects connected with our wanderings over the same countries. Occasionally, while we were discussing our traveling experiences, the unlucky set-look left his countenance, and I began to work to some purpose; but it was always disastrously sure to return again, before I had made any great progress--or, in other words, just at the very time when I was most anxious that it should not re-appear. The obstacle thus thrown in the way of the satisfactory completion of my portrait, was the more to be deplored, because Mr. Faulkner's natural expression was a very remarkable one. I am not an author, so I can not describe it. I ultimately succeeded in painting it, however; and this was the way in which I achieved my success: On the morning when my sitter was coming to me for the fourth time, I was looking at his portrait in no very agreeable mood--looking at it, in fact, with the disheartening conviction that the picture would be a perfect failure, unless the expression in the face represented were thoroughly altered and improved from nature. The only method of accomplishing this successfully, was to make Mr. Faulkner, somehow, insensibly forget that he was sitting for his picture. What topic could I lead him to talk on, which would entirely engross his attention while I was at work on his likeness?--I was still puzzling my brains to no purpose on this subject, when Mr. Faulkner entered my studio; and, shortly afterward, an accidental circumstance gained for me the very object which my own ingenuity had proved unequal to compass.