articulated some human sounds picked up from the Indians, but could speak a few words of Portuguese and Dutch, learned by rote from my great grandfather, I was considered a genius of high order. With the conceit, therefore, of all my noble family, I was prompted to go forth and visit other and better worlds, and to seek a sphere better adapted to the display of my presumed abilities, than that afforded by our domestic senate and home-spun society. On one of those celestial nights, known only in the tropical regions, I set forth on my travels, directing my course to the Portuguese settlement, which the youthful vigour of my wing enabled me to reach by the break of morning. Having refreshed myself with a breakfast of fruit, after the exhaustion of my nocturnal flight, I ascended a spacious palm tree, which afforded an admirable view of the adjacent country, and a desirable shelter from the ardours of the rising sun. My first impulse was to take a bird's-eye view of the novel scene which lay before me, and I gazed around for some minutes with intense delight; but fatigue gradually obtained the mastery over curiosity, and, putting my head unconsciously beneath my wing, I fell into a profound sleep. How long this continued, I know not; but I was suddenly awakened by a strange muttering of unknown voices. I looked, and beheld two creatures whose appearance greatly surprised me. They had nothing of the noble form and aspect of our Indian neighbours. One of them considerably resembled the preacher-monkey in countenance and deportment; his head was denuded of hair, and his person was covered by a black substance, which left no limb visible except his ancles and feet, which were very much like those of an ape. The other had all the air of a gigantic parrot: he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow head; and all the rest of his strange figure was party-coloured, blue, green, red, and black. I classed him at once as a specimen of the Psittacus Ochropterus. The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade and repose. They had beside them a basket filled with dead game, fruit, and honey; and the parrot had a long instrument near him on the ground, which I afterwards learned was a fowling-piece. They talked a strange jargon of different intonation, like that of the respective chatter of the grey and the green parrots. Both seemed to complain, and, by the expression of their ugly and roguish faces, to interrogate each other. As soon as they went away, I endeavoured to mutter to myself the sounds they had uttered, but could retain only two phrases. The one had been spoken by the ape, and ran thus--"Shure it was for my sweet sowl's sake, jewel;" the other was--"Eh, sirs, it was aw' for the love of the siller." I was extremely amused by my acquisition; and, being convinced that I was now qualified to present myself at the settlement, was about