Page:Rural Hours.djvu/474

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426
RURAL HOURS.

Shall such a bond be severed by distempered passions? Let us be on our guard, lest the evil be brought about by small antagonist parties whose sympathies are not loyal to the nation at large. History may teach us that small parties are often very dangerous, and nowhere more so than in republics.

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It is well known that we have in the southern parts of the country a member of the Parrot tribe, the Carolina Parakeet. It is a handsome bird, and interesting from being the only one of its family met with in a temperate climate of the Northern Hemisphere. They are found in great numbers as far north as Virginia, on the Atlantic coast; beyond the Alleghanies, they spread themselves much farther to the northward, being frequent on the banks of the Ohio, and in the neighborhood of St. Louis. They are even found along the Illinois, nearly as far north as the shores of Lake Michigan. They fly in flocks, noisy and restless, like all their brethren; their coloring is green and orange, with a shade of red about the head. In the Southern States their flesh is eaten. Greatly to the astonishment of the good people of Albany, a large flock of these birds appeared in their neighborhood in the year 1795. It is a well-authenticated fact, that a flock of Parakeets were observed some twenty-five miles to the northward of Albany during that year ; so that we have a right to number them among our rare visitors. They have been repeatedly seen in the valley of the Juniata, in Pennsylvania. Birds are frequently carried about against their will by gales of wind; the Stormy Petrels, for instance, thoroughly aquatic as they are, have been found, occasionally, far inland. And in the same way we must