426 Bergtold, Concerning the Thick-billed Parrot. [oct. 



that have been found." Had the literature bearing on this bird 

 and its eggs been accessible to the present writer on his return from 

 his first trip in 1903, he doubtless would have learned of the rarity 

 of these eggs, and would have been at greater pains on the second 

 trip to get full data concerning eggs, nesting, etc. If the state- 

 ment relative to the rarity of these eggs be correct, the writer's 

 regret is the more keen, for the mountains west of Parral are alive 

 with these parrots, and he is sure he could easily have arranged for 

 the collection of numerous eggs and parent birds. This regret is 

 tempered only by the pleasure afforded by the abundant oppor- 

 tunity the writer had to study these parrots. 



In the higher mountains west of Parral, a region varying in*alti- 

 tude from 4000 to 10,000 feet, the Thick-billed Parrot is far more 

 common than northward in the country west of Cases Grandes; in 

 fact it is the characteristic bird of these high places, as much so as 

 is the Magpie part of the local color of our Western Plains. 



It was a great surprise to see how different is a wild parrot from 

 a tame one; one must need get an idea from the latter that a parrot 

 is a slow, lumbering climber, able to use its wings perhaps, yet little 

 given to prolonged and vigorous flight. On the contrary, this Thick- 

 billed Parrot flew across deep barrancas, from mountain to moun- 

 tain, as swift and strong on wing as a duck, going often in large 

 flocks, which were noticeably divided in pairs, each couple flying 

 one above another as closely as beating wings allowed. Its loud 

 squawk resounded overhead, across the barrancas, and in the pines 

 all day long, from dawn till dusk; and many and many a time a 

 flock could be heard long before it was in sight. The birds were 

 not at all shy, as one could walk up under a tree and watch a pair 

 climbing in it without disturbing them in the least. Here they 

 seemed natural, at least to one whose previous knowledge of a par- 

 rot came via the cage bird, for they climbed about precisely as does 

 the domesticated species, using bill and feet in the familiar way; on 

 the wing the birds seemed anything but parrots. In whatever sec- 

 tion we saw them, these parrots were most abundant in the pines. 

 They frequented the tops of dead pines, and were, a good part of 

 the time, going in and out of abandoned woodpecker nests, nests 

 which we took to be those of the Imperial Woodpecker (Campo- 

 philus imperialis), for this splendid woodpecker is relatively com- 



