TAO Clark, The West Indian Parrots. Vo* 



fruits which grow in the forests, except that it does not eat the 

 manchioneel. Cotton seed intoxicates it, and affects it as wine 

 does a man, and for that reason they eat it with great eagerness. 



"The flavor of its flesh is excellent, but changeable, according 

 to the kind of food. If it eats cashew nuts, the flesh has an 

 agreeable flavor of garlic; if 'bois des inde ' it has a flavor of 

 cloves and cinnamon ; if on bitter fruits, it becomes bitter like 

 gall. If it feeds on genips, the flesh becomes wholly black, but 

 that does not prevent its having a very fine flavor. When it feeds 

 on guavas it is at its best, and then the French commit great 

 havoc among them." 



Later, in his ' Histoire GeneVale des Antilles 1 habitees par les 

 Francois ' (II, p. 250), he repeats this description and adds: "We 

 had two which built their nest a hundred paces from our house in 

 a large tree. The male and the female sat alternately, and came 

 one after the other to feed at the house, where they brought their 

 young when they were large enough to leave the nest." 



In the ' Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Isles Antilles de 

 l'Amerique' (Rotterdam, 1658) ' 2 we find (p. 157; 2nd. edition, 

 p. 175) : "There are in almost all the Antilles Parrots, which the 

 Indian inhabitants call in their language ' Koulehuec,' and which 

 go in flocks like starlings. The hunters place them in the rank of 

 game birds, and do not think it a waste of powder to shoot them ; 

 for they are as good and fat as the best fowl, especially when 

 young, and at the season of the fruiting of the many trees upon 

 which they feed. They are of different sizes and colors in the 

 different islands, so that the old inhabitants can tell the place of 

 their birth by their size and color." 



Pere Labat in his ' Nouveau Voyage aux Isles de l'Amerique ' 3 

 (II, p. 214, 1742) says : "The Parrots of these islands are dis- 

 tinguishable from those of the mainland of Guinea ( ? Guiana) by 



1 In three volumes; Vols. I, II, 1667; Vol. Ill, 1671. Antilles is spelt 

 Ant-Iles in the third volume to agree with a theory of the author's as to the 

 derivation of the word. 



2 Anonymous, but credited to C. Cesar de Rochefort. A second edition 

 appeared in 1665. 



3 In five volumes; there is an earlier edition (Paris, 1722) in ten volumes 

 which I have not been able to examine. 



