° 1912 J Wright, Early Records of the Carolina Paroquet. o4o 



EARLY RECORDS OF THE CAROLINA PAROQUET. 



BY ALBERT HAZEN WRIGHT. 



Almost our only ornithologic sources of the earlier times in 

 North America are historical annals, quaint narratives of explora- 

 tion, and travellers' sketches. In those clays, the number of real 

 naturalists may have been many, yet they seldom recorded their 

 observations in scientific form; and our resident scientists were 

 few. Hence, if we would form any idea of the primitive conditions 

 and species, we must perforce use what we have at hand, however 

 diverse our respective evaluations of their trustworthiness. The 

 average biologist, as he reads early North American travels, cannot 

 but marvel at the intense interest of our predecessors in birds, 

 now rare, near-extinct or extinct, i The flocking of the Passenger 

 Pigeon, the size and flavor of the Wild Turkey, the gorgeous 

 plumage and surprising northern range of the Carolina Paroquet, 

 or equally peculiar characters or habits of other forms, now fast 

 disappearing, were in such bold relief, so obvious and so patent 

 as to attract the attention of any layman whatever his mission. 



Probably none of these forms caused more genuine amazement 

 than the Paroquet {Conuropsis carolinensis) , particularly in the 

 northern limits of its range. Of its previous distribution, Has- 

 brouck in his monograph of this form says,^ " we find that of the 

 forty-four States and five Territories comprising our country, 

 there are records of the occurrence of this species in twenty-two 

 States and one Territory, over which it formerly ranged. If we 

 take the forty-third parallel as the northern limit, the twenty-sixth 

 as the most southern, the seventy-third and one hundred and sixth 

 meridians as the eastern and western boundaries respectively, we 

 will have included very nearly all the country in which the Paroquet 

 formerly lived." In his introductory remarks he notes that "For 

 many years it has been a recognized fact that the Carolina Paroquet 

 {Conurus carolinensis) is fast approaching extermination, the last 

 quarter of a century having witnessed such rapid diminution in its 

 numbers and so great a restriction in its range that, ' in the opinion 



1 ' The Auk ', VoL VIII, No. 4, Oct., 1891, pp. 371, 369. 



