PATAGONIAN PARROT 29 
their powerful beaks. When a horseman appears 
in the distance they rise in a compact flock, with loud 
harsh screams, and hover above him, within a very 
few yards of his head, their combined dissonant 
voices producing an uproar which is only equalled 
in that pandemonium of noises, the Parrot-house in 
the Zoological Gardens of London. They are 
extremely social, so much so that their flocks do not 
break up in the breeding-season ; and their burrows, 
which they excavate in a perpendicular cliff or high 
bank, are placed close together; so that when the 
gauchos take the young birds—esteemed a great 
delicacy—the person who ventures down by means 
of a rope attached to his waist is able to rifle a colony. 
The burrow is three to five feet deep, and four white 
eggs are deposited on a slight nest at the extremity. 
I have only tasted the old birds, and found their 
flesh very bitter, scarcely palatable. 
The natives say that this species cannot be taught 
to speak; and it is certain that the few individuals 
I have seen tame were unable to articulate. 
Doubtless these Parrots were originally stray 
colonists from the tropics, although now resident 
in so cold a country as Patagonia. When viewed 
closely one would also imagine that they must at 
one time have been brilliant-plumaged birds; 
but either natural selection or the direct effect of 
a bleak climate has given a sombre shade to their 
colours—green, blue, yellow, and crimson; and 
when seen flying at a distance, or in cloudy weather, 
they look as dark as crows. 
