I have been comparing the new one with the old one, and it is perfectly
plain that they are the same breed. I was going to stuff one of them
for my collection, but she is prejudiced against it for some reason or
other; so I have relinquished the idea, though I think it is a mistake.
It would be an irreparable loss to science if they should get away. The
old one is tamer than it was, and can laugh and talk like the parrot,
having learned this, no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and
having the imitative faculty in a highly developed degree. I shall be
astonished if it turns out to be a new kind of parrot, and yet I ought
not to be astonished, for it has already been everything else it could
think of, since those first days when it was a fish. The new one is as
ugly now as the old one was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat
complexion and the same singular head without any fur on it. She calls
it Abel.