366 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



scientific observers, that our information on other points is extremely deficient. Au- 

 clubon thinks that several females lay in the same nest, and that each bird only lays two 

 eggs. They feed largely on the cockle-burr (Xanthium strumarium), but they also are 

 very fond of cultivated grains. Indeed it is to the fact that their depredations in the 

 fields of the farmer are (or have been) of serious extent that a large part of their per- 

 secution is due. This is not the sole cause for their diminution in numbers and 

 range. So-called sportsmen shoot them in large numbers for the mere purpose of 



FIG. 170. Conurus carolinensis, Carolina parrot. 



killing as many as they can. Professional bird-hunters take hundreds every year in 

 Florida and send them to the north. All these elements are tending toward the 



O 



destruction of the species. 



Nineteen species of Pyrrhura, the red-tailed parakeets, are known, all with three 

 exceptions from Brazil, one reaching as far north as Mexico. They are all small. 

 J3rotogerys, also Brazilian, contains eleven species, while Solborhynchus^ with seven 

 species, reaches north to Mexico, and south to the Argentine Republic. One species, 

 the monk or gray-breasted parakeet (JB. monachus), differs from all other parrots in its 

 nidification. All parrots, with this exception, nest in hollow trees, or in clefts in the rocks. 

 The monk parakeet, on the other hand, builds a free ball-shaped nest, with a lateral 



