Impressions of the Voices of Tropical Birds 



By LOUIS AGASSIZ FUERTES 



Illustrated by the Author 



SIXTH PAPER— PARROTS, GUANS, AND PIGEONS; THE VOICES OF A TROPICAL MARSH 



WHEN one meets with wild Parrots for the first time, he gets, undi- 

 luted, the pure breath of the tropics. And when, after an acquaint- 

 ance with the Parrakeets and Parrotlets, the larger and more 

 thrilling kinds appear, the sensations are even richer. About Cali, and indeed 

 most of the other Southern American towns and \-illages, the little green and 

 sky-blue Parrotlets fill the place House Sparrows occupy with us, nesting in 

 the bamboo ridgepoles of the houses, and adopting a familiar attitude toward 

 man and his works. The native children almost universally tame them, and 

 in the patio of the Cali hotel seventeen of them lived in perfect familiarity 

 among the roses and flowering vines. Their chirping and twittering reminded 

 me of nothing more than the noises made by Sparrows; though the fact that 

 they were indigenous, coupled with their confiding friendliness and beautiful 

 colors, removed the prejudice that the reminder might otherwise have 

 engendered. 



Wild Parrots make the same raucous noises that tame ones do, and a feed- 

 ing flock, unsuspicious of man's proximity, is constantly in low, chuckling 

 conversation. But many and many a time I have heard them up the trail, and, 

 cautiously approaching, have become aware that I was observed, when all 

 sound and motion ceased while I was still some distance from their feeding- 

 tree. With all their scarlet and safifron trimmings, the Amazona Parrots, in 

 my experience, take an easy palm over all others in the gentle art of ceasing 

 to be where you know they are! I think we all had the experience of search- 

 ing till our eyes ached, where we knew Parrots were working, without being 

 able to discern a single bird, even in the comparatively open leafage along 

 the trails. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, as the entire flock took 

 simultaneous alarm, the innocent air would be rent with the hellish screeching 

 of two hundred fiendish birds, and gorgeous with the flashing scarlet and blue 

 and gold of noisy wings, as these capricious and thrilling birds would leave 

 for another part of the forest. The tree would literally explode Parrots! 



After some experience mth them, we came to distinguish the three Mexican 

 Amazonas by their cries, when they were too far away to tell by sight. .1. 

 oratrix, the 'Double Yellow-head' of fanciers, cried quite plainly "Cut it out, 

 cut it out," while .4. viridiginalis called "Poll-Poll-Parrot, Poll-Poll-Par- 

 rot," and A. autumnalis, from southern Vera Cruz, had a sufliciently distinct 

 screech to immediately stamp it as something new, although I made no trans- 

 scription of its yell. 



Conures all make regular Parrot noises, though shriller and 'lighter' than 

 those of the larger kinds. But the 'real noise' in Parrotdom is the great, gor- 



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