318 ANNUAL EEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1915. 



roost familiarly in the age-long deserted ruins of their former glory. 

 Indeed, these mysterious, gentle, shy, little birds came to me, at 

 least, to be the liying symbol of this great lost magnificence ; for the 

 present-day Mayas know naught of the art and history of their great 

 forefathers, whose temples and beautiful buildings are now in utter 

 obliyion and disuse, except as the shelters and dwellings of little 

 " toll," the motmot, and his soft hoot is the only sound that ever issues 

 from their carved portals. 



YI.— PARROTS, GUANS, AND PIGEONS; THE VOICES OF A TROPICAL 



MARSH. 



lAlien one meets with wild parrots for the first time he gets, un- 

 diluted, the pure breath of the Tropics. And when, after an ac- 

 quaintance with the parrakeets and parrotlets, the larger and more 

 thrilling kinds appear the sensations are even richer. About Call, 

 and indeed most of the other South American towns and villages, 

 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 tow^ard man and his works. The na- 

 tive children almost universally tame them, and in the patio of the 

 Cali Hotel, 17 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 feeding 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 Avas still some distance from their feeding tree. With all their 

 scarlet and saffron trimmings, the Amazona parrots, in ni}'^ ex- 

 perience, 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 searching till our eyes ached Avhere we knew parrots 

 were working without being able to discern a single bird, even in 

 the comparatively open leafage along the trails. Suddenly, with- 

 out the slightest warning, as the entire flock took simultaneous 

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

 200 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. 



