238 LOST AND VANISHING BIRDS 



The extermination of this species appears to be 

 directly due to the agency of civilised man. Their 

 numbers, we learn from Bendire's account, from 

 which many of the particulars of this species here 

 given are obtained, have gradually but steadily 

 diminished with the general settlement of those 

 regions frequented by this bird. Audubon, even 

 as early as 1832, tells us that they were not so 

 common as formerly ; but even as recently as 1860 

 they were still comparativelj'' common in the Gulf 

 States, and the Mississippi, Arkansas, and White 

 River valleys. At the present time the Carolina 

 Paroquet is confined to the least accessible portions 

 of South Florida, and very locally to the Indian 

 Territory. As so often happens in cases of this kind, 

 some of the habits of this Paroquet are but im- 

 perfectly known, notwithstanding the bird's former 

 wide distribution and abundance. Its favourite 

 haunts appear to be well-timbered valleys and the 

 large cypress swamps so common in the Southern 

 States. It is a very social bird, rarely met with 

 alone, and so fearless that a flock is easily destroyed 

 whilst hovering above a fallen companion, as is the 

 way with certain Terns and other species. Before 



been imported into Eui'ope, and hundreds of skins collected in 

 Florida for the Smithsonian Institution (Conf. His, 1896, p. 412). 



