THE CAROLINA PAROQUET. 369 



CAROLINA PAROQUET. 



\ . O. U. Xo. 382. Conurus carolinensis (Linn. J. 



Synonyms. — Carolina Pakrakeet; Parakeet; Parrooiet. 



Description. — Adult: Head and neck all around bright yellow; forehead, 

 lores and cheeks orange-red ; remaining plumage bright green, most of the feathers 

 with blackish shafts, variegated with faint bluish and yellow-green on wings ; the 

 bend of the wing orange, the edge yellow ; the inner webs of wing-quills fuscous ; 

 tail regularly graduated, dull yellowish green below; bill white; feet flesh color. 

 Young: Plain green. Length 12.00-13.50 (304.8-342.9); wing 7.00-7.60 

 (177.8-193.) ; tail 5.25-7.00 (133.3-177.8) ; bill .90 (22.9). 



Recognition Marks. — Little Hawk size ; bright green, with orange and yel- 

 low head. 



Nesting. — Not known to have bred in Ohio, but probably did so. Nest, for- 

 merly described as in hollow trees, but now believed to nest in loose colonies, each 

 nest being placed near the end of a horizontal branch in a cypress or other free; a 

 loose bunch of sticks, something like a Mourning Dove's. Eggs, 2-5, white. Av. 

 size 1.40 x 1. 10 (35.6 x 27.9). 



General Range. — Formerly Florida and the Gulf States north to Maryland, 

 the Great Lakes, Iowa and Nebraska, west to Colorado, the Indian Territory and 

 Texas, and straggling north-eastward to Pennsylvania and New York. Now 

 restricted to Florida, Arkansas and Indian Territory, where it is only of local 

 occurrence. 



Range in Ohio. — Formerly common, but now extinct. 



MANY causes have conspired to bring about the total extermination 

 within our bounds of this once abundant bird, but the chief cause was "Dei" 

 Fluch der Schonheit" (the curse of beauty). It was not possible that in 

 an aye of guns and women a creature of such prominence and beauty should 

 have been spared to grace our landscape with its living green. Brilliant 

 plumage and a dashing figure were alone sufficient to doom their possessor 

 to destruction — and worse, namely millinery appropriation — but when to 

 these were added a strident voice and a fondness for fruits and young 

 grains, the case became quite hopeless. 



There are gray-haired men still among us who remember the shrieking 

 companies of "parrots" which used to haunt the bottom lands and go charging 

 about the sycamores like gusts of mad leaves ; but to-day only the cunning 

 plume-hunter or thrice-lucky ornithologist may penetrate to the remaining 

 fastnesses of the species in the everglades of Florida. 



The flight of the Parrakeets was described as being graceful and very 

 swift, comparable in both respects to that of the Passenger Pigeon. The 

 birds moved about in companies of from fifty to five hundred individuals; and 

 when making extended flights or when coming down to feed, the flock fell into 

 a V-shaped figure, somewhat like that affected by the Canada Geese. Altho 



