THE I'AKOLINA I'ARRAKEET. 345 



The female clcplumcd her beautiful breast, and, after having collected the feathers into 

 ;i heap, deposited two rourid white eggs, on which she sat most assiduously, the male 

 feeding her at intervals, by disinterestedly disgorging what he had swallowed, and 

 presenting the same to his spouse. The young were produced at the end of nineteen 

 days, and in the space of a few more became covered with a gray cinereous down, which 

 was by degrees succeeded by green feathers on the body and by blue ones on the head. 

 At the end of three weeks they left the nest, and perched upon the neighbouring sticks, 

 where the male and female fed them in concert, after the manner of pigeons. The 

 parent-birds continued to tend them in this manner for six months, and often afforded 

 a very interesting scene ; the young being frequently seated bej^ond the female, and the 

 male not being able to reach them, first presented the food to his mate, who immediately 

 delivered it to her young. These, though of different sexes, were perfectly alike till the 

 first moulting, at which time red feathers bordered with green began to appear upon 

 the breast, and the male became distinguished by the blue patch upon tlie abdomen. 



THE CAROLINA PARRAKEET.* 



The great body of the Pmffadd(p, as already observed, are natives of the intertropical 

 climates ; but the species now under consideration is one of the few that occurs in the 

 temperate regions of the northern hcmispliere. It is a nitive of the Xorth American 

 continent, inhabiting tlie United States to a latitude as high as 42''. Such, at least, was 

 the case some twenty or twenty-five years ago, when Alexander Wilson was engaged in 

 tracing out the history of the birds inhabiting the Slates ; for we find, on turning to his 

 delightful pages, that then it not only prevailed throughout Louisiana and the shores of 

 the Mississippi and Ohio, but also those of their tributary waters as high as Lake 

 Michigan, in latitude 40° ?^. AVe learn, however, from Audubon, not less graphic or 

 original in his descriptive powers, that of late years these birds have rapidly diminished 

 in number, and that they are now almost banished from districts where formerly 

 they used to abound. " At that period," he sa3-s, speaking of twentv'-five years ago, 

 " they could be procured as far up the tributaiy waters of the Ohio as the great Kcn- 

 hawa, the Scioto, the heads of the JMiami, the mouth of the Manimee at its junction with 

 Lake Erie, on the Illinois river, and sometimes as far north-east as Lake Ontario, and 

 along the eastern districts as far as the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland. 

 At the present day few are to bo found higher than Cincinnati, nor is it until you reach 

 the mouth of the Ohio that parrakeets are met with in considerable numbers. I should 

 think that along the Mississippi there is not now half the number that existed fifteen 

 years ago." 



The Carolina parrakeets in all their movements, which are uniformly gregarious, show 

 a peculiar predilection for the alluvial, rich, and dark forests bordering the principal 

 rivers and larger streams, in which the towering cypress and gigantic sjxamore spread 

 their vast summits, or stretch their innumerable arms over a wide waste of moving or 

 stagnant waters. From these, the beech, and the hack-berrj% they derive an important 

 supply of food. The flocks, moving in the manner of wild pigeons, dart in swift and 

 airy phalanx through the green boughs of the forest ; screaming in a general concert, 

 they wheel in wide and descending circles round the tall button-wood, and all alight in 

 the same instant, their green lustre, like the fairy mantle, rendering them nearly 

 invisible beneath the shady branches, where they sit, perhaps arranging their plumage, 

 and shuffling side by side, seem to caress and scratch each others' heads with all the 

 fondness and imvarj-ing friendship of affectionate doves. If the gun thin their ranks, 



• Ariira Carolinensis. 



