4 BULLETm 17 6, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM 



welcome visitors "to the planter, the farmer, or the gardener." He 

 says: 



The stacks of grain put up in the field are resorted to by flocks of these 

 birds, which frequently cover them so entirely, that they present to the eye 

 the same effect as if a brilliantly coloured carpet had been thrown over them. 

 They cling around the whole stack, pull out the straws, and destroy twice as 

 much of the grain as would suffice to satisfy their hunger. They assail the 

 pear and apple-trcos, when the fruit is yet very small and far from being ripe, 

 and this merely for the sake of the seeds. As on the stalks of corn, they alight 

 on the apple-trees of our orchards, or the pear-trees in the gardens, in great 

 numbers; and, as if through mere mischief, pluck off the fruits, open them tip 

 to the core, and, disappointed at the sight of the seeds, which are yet soft and 

 of a milky consistence, drop the apple or pear, and pluck another, passing from 

 branch to branch, until the trees which were before so promising, are left 

 completely stripped. * * * They visit the mulberries, pecan-nuts, grapes, 

 and even the seeds of the dog-wood, before they are ripe, and on all commit 

 similar depredations. * * * 



Do not imagine, reader, that all these outrages are borne without severe 

 retaliation on the part of the planters. So far from this, the Parakeets are 

 destroyed in great numbers, for whilst busily engaged in plucking off the fruits 

 or tearing the grain from the stacks, the husbandman approaches them with 

 perfect ease, and commits great slaughter among them. All the survivors rise, 

 shriek, fly around about for a few minutes, and again alight on the very place 

 of most imminent danger. The gun is kept at work; eight or ten, or even 

 twenty, are killed at every discharge. The living birds, as if conscious of the 

 death of their companions, sweep over their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, 

 but still return to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain alive, that the 

 farmer does not consider it worth his while to spend more of his ammunition. 

 I have seen several hundreds destroyed in this manner in the course of a few 

 hours. 



This fatal habit of hovering over their fallen companions has 

 helped, more than any one thing, to bring about their extermination. 

 Their social disposition has been their undoing. C. J. Maynard 

 (1896) says of this trait: "This is not a mere liking for company, 

 as they are actually fond of one another, for, if one out of a flock 

 be wounded, the survivors attracted by its screams, will return to 

 hover over it and, even if constantly shot at, will not leave as long 

 as their distressed friend calls for assistance; in fact, I have seen 

 every individual in a flock killed one after the other, and the last 

 bird betrayed as much anxiety for the fate of its prostrate friends 

 which were strewed upon the ground, as it did when the first fell." 



Nesting. — Nothing very definite seems to be known about the nest- 

 ing habits of the Carolina parakeet. No competent ornithologist 

 has ever seen a nest. Even Wilson and Audubon, who lived in the 

 days when these birds were so abundant, never saw a nest; and all 

 they wrote about it was based on hearsay. Most observers seemed to 

 agree that the parakeets nested in hollow trees, but some of the 



