AVES PSITTACID^. 723 



Geographical Range. — Cordillera of central and southern Patagonia 

 and southern Chili to the Straits of Magellan and Tierra del Fuego. 



Fig. 372. Microsittace ferrugineus, adult male, P. U. O. C. 7747. About one-half natural size. 



Mr. Hatcher observed this small parrot first in the extreme south- 

 western part of Tierra del Fuego, and his vivid experience is given in 

 his Narrative. Mr. Lane found the birds as far north as Valdivia in 

 Chili, and other observers have recorded it throughout the Patagonian 

 Andes, where the Princeton naturalists met with these birds in numbers. 

 (5^^ Vol. I, pp. 149-151.) 



Cunningham writes of this species at the Straits of Magellan: "The 

 occurrence of a member of the parrot family so far south strikes the 

 traveller at first sight as very remarkable, and it is not surprising that 

 it should have attracted the attention of several of the earlier navigators 

 who braved the dangers of the Strait. Thus, in the voyage of Oliver 

 van Noort in 1599, and in that of Spilbergen undertaken fifteen years 

 later, reference is made to fair woods in the Strait of Magellan full of 

 parrots ; and Captain Wood, in his interesting narrative of this Voyage 

 through the Streights of Magellan in 1699-70, mentions that in a wood 

 at Port Famine he "saw five birds, among which was a small parrot or 

 parakite." The species appears to be tolerably common throughout the 

 wooded country on the shores of the Strait, and the channels on the west 

 side of Patagonia, and is also abundant at Chiloe. It generally flies in 

 small flocks, which herald their approach by a series of short screams, 

 lighting on the topmost branches of the trees, where they scramble about 



