366 



NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



Bcientific observers, that our information on other points is extremely deficient. Au- 

 (hilioii thiniis that several females lay in tlie same nest, anil that each hiril only lays two 

 eggs. They feed larj^ely on the cookle-hurr {Xnnlltiimistritmariiim), but they also are 

 very fonil of cultivated grains. Indeed it is to the fact that their depredations in the 

 fields of the farmer are (or have been) of serious extent that a large j)art of their per- 

 secution is due. This is not the sole cause for their dimiiuitioii in numbers and 

 range. So-called sportsmen shoot them in large numbers for the mere purpose of 



fA'/ 





Kio. 170. — Conurat carolinetuis, Carolina parrol. 



killing as many as they can. Professional binl-lmuters take hundreds every year in 

 Florida .-nid send them to tiie nortli. All tiiese elements are tending toward the 

 destruction of the species. 



Nineteen species of Pyrrhura, the red-tailed parakeets, are known, all with three 

 exceptions from Brazil, one reaching as far north as Mexico. They are all sm.all. 

 Brotogeri/s, also IJrazilian, contains eleven species, while Jiolbor/it/iic/ius, with seven 

 species, reaches north to Mexico, and south to the Argentine Itepublic. One sjiecies, 

 the monk or gray-breasted ]>arakeet {H. moiKic/nis), differs from all other parrots in its 

 iiidification. All |)arrots, with this exception, nest in hollow trees, or in clefts in the rocks. 

 The monk parakeet, on the other liand, builds a free ball-shaped nest, with a lateral 



