CAROLINA PARAKEET 6 



shot as recently as September 1865 (Smith and Palmer, 1888). They 

 apparently were common in the Carolinas up to 1850, or perhaps 

 1860, but must have disappeared from there soon after that. For 

 Georgia, there seem to be no records since 1849. In Florida, the 

 species made its last stand; parakeets were evidently common 

 throughout the State up to the 1860's, but during the next 20 years 

 all observers reported them as becoming rarer and more restricted 

 in range. In the early ISGO's it was still connnon in certain remote 

 localities in Florida. Arthur H. Howell (1932) has this to say 

 about the last records of this vanishing bird: 



E. J. Brown reported the birds plentiful in March, 1896, near Campbell, 

 Osceola County. Dr. E. A. Mearns took 6 specimens on Padget Creek, Brevard 

 County, April 18, 1901. Apparently the last stronghold was in the vicinity of 

 Taylor Creek, on the northeastern side of Okeechobee Lake. Here on February 

 29, 1896, Robert Ridgway collected 13 specimens, and in April, 1904, Frank M. 

 Chapman saw two flocks aggregating 13 birds (1912, p. 318). W. W. Worth- 

 ington hunted along both sides of Taylor Creek on March 26, 1907, without see- 

 ing any Paroquets. * * * Capt. F. W. Sams, an old resident of Florida, 

 told Dr. Amos W. Butler that he saw a flock of 8 or 10 Paroquets in 1909 at 

 Cabbage Slough, on the west side of TurnbuU Hammock, about 12 or 15 miles 

 southwest of New Smyrna. E. Stewart Hyer, of Orlando, reports seeing one 

 bird at Istokpoga Lake on February 16, 1910. A late and apparently authentic 

 record is published by Chapman (Bird Lore, 1915, p. 453) on the authority of 

 W. J. F. McCormick, who claims to have seen about a dozen birds in March and 

 April, 1915. Henry Redding, who knows the birds well, reported a flock of 

 about 30 seen on Fort Drum Creek in February, 1920. 



The causes that led to the extermination of the parakeet are not 

 hard to find. It was a bad actor, regarded by fruit growers and 

 agriculturists as a destructive pest, doing extensive damage to their 

 crops. Consequently it was slaughtered in enormous numbers on 

 every opportunity. It was more or less hunted as a game bird, for it 

 was abundant and its flesh was said to be very palatable. It was shot 

 in enormous numbers for mere sport, or for practice. Hundreds were 

 captured by professional bird catchers and sent north, as cage birds 

 or pets, and many were killed for their plumage. Furthermore, it 

 has always retreated before the spread of civilization and seemed in- 

 capable of surviving in settled regions, probably for the reasons 

 mentioned above. 



W, E. D. Scott (1889) says that "they were wantonly mischievous 

 and cut hundreds of young green oranges, peaches, and the like, from 

 the trees almost as soon as the fruit was formed." Many were shot 

 by farmers in their cornfields, where the birds had formed the bad 

 habit of feeding on the tender corn on the ears, thus destroying, or 

 injuring, a large part of the crop. 



According to Audubon (1842) they ate or destroyed almost every 

 kind of fruit indiscriminately and on this account were always un- 



