new comer, the very first day."

Bingley also says, "Willoughby tells us of a parrot, which when a person
said to it, 'laugh, Poll, laugh,' laughed accordingly, and the instant
after screamed out, 'What a fool to make me laugh.' Another which had
grown old with its master, shared with him the infirmities of age. Being
accustomed to hear scarcely anything but the words, 'I am sick;' when a
person asked it, 'How do you do, Poll? how d'ye do?'--'I am sick,' it
replied, in a doleful tone, stretching itself along, 'I am sick.'"

Goldsmith says, "That a parrot belonging to King Henry VIII. having
been kept in a room next the Thames, in his palace at Westminster, had
learned to repeat many sentences from the boatmen and passengers. One
day sporting on its perch, it unluckily fell into the water. The bird
had no sooner discovered its situation, than it called out aloud,
'A boat, twenty pounds for a boat.' A waterman happening to be near
the place where the parrot was floating, immediately took it up, and
restored it to the king; demanding, as the bird was a favourite, that he
should be paid the reward that it had called out. This was refused; but
it was agreed, that as the parrot had offered a reward, the man should
again refer to its determination for the sum he was to receive. 'Give
the knave a groat,' the bird screamed aloud, the instant the reference
was made."

Mr. Locke, in his "Essay on the Human Understanding," has related an
anecdote concerning parrots, of which (says Bingley) however incredible
it may appear to some, he seems to have had so much evidence, as at
least to have believed it himself. It is taken from a writer of some
celebrity; the author of Memoirs of what passed in Christendom from 1672
to 1679. The story is this:--