Genus V. PSITTACUS. PARROT. 

 P. CAROLINENSIS. 



CAROLINA PARROT, 



[Plate XXVI. Fig. 1.] 



Linn. Syst. i., p. 97, ed. 10.— Catesby, i., 11.— Latham, i., 22'1.—Arct. Zool. 242, 



No. 132. Ibid. 133.* 



Of one hundred and sixty-eight kinds of Parrots, enumerated by 

 European writers as inhabiting the various regions of the globe, this is 

 the only species found native within the territory of the United States. 

 The vast and luxuriant tracts lying within the torrid zone, seem to be the 

 favorite residence of those noisy, numerous, and richly -plumaged tribes. 

 The Count de Buffon has, indeed, circumscribed the whole genus of Par- 

 rots to a space not extending more than twenty-three degrees on each 

 side of the equator ; but later discoveries have shown this statement to 

 be incorrect ; as these birds have been found on our continent as far 

 south as the Straits of Magellan, and even on the remote shores of Van 

 Diemen's Land, in Terra Australasia. The species now under consider- 

 ation is also known to inhabit the interior of Louisiana, and the shores 

 of the Mississippi and Ohio, and their tributary waters, even beyond the 

 Illinois river, to the neighborhood of Lake Michigan, in lat. 42° North ; 

 and, contrary to the generally received opinion, is chiefly resident in all 

 these places. Eastward, however, of the great range of the Alleghany, 

 it is seldom seen farther north than the State of Maryland ; though 

 straggling parties have been occasionally observed among the valleys of 

 the Juniata ; and according to some, even twenty-five miles to the north- 

 west of Albany, in the State of New York.f But such accidental 

 visits furnish no certain criteria by which to judge of their usual extent 

 of range ; those aerial voyagers, as well as others who navigate the deep, 

 being subject to be cast away, by the violence of the elements, on dis- 

 tant shores and unknown countries. 



From these circumstances of the northern residence of this species, 

 we might be justified in concluding it to be a very hardy bird, more 

 capable of sustaining cold than nine-tenths of its tribe ; and so I believe 



* We add the following synonymes : La Perruche de la Caroline, Br:ss. 4, p. 

 350. — Orange-headed Parrot, Lath. Gen. Syn. I., p. 304. Jnd. Orn.ip. 93. 

 f Barton's Fragments, &c., p. 6, Introd. 



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