Hashuouck oh llic Ctiiiiliini Paroquet. . 1^9 



rilE CAROLINA PAROQUET {CONURUS iARO- 

 LINENSIS). 



BY EOWIN M. MASBUOUCK. 



For many years it has been a reco^-ni/.ed fact that the Carolina 

 Paroqnet {Cimnriis carol hiensis) is fast approaching extermina- 

 tion, tlie last (luarter of a century Iriving witnessed such ra[)i(l 

 thniinution in its numbers and so great a restriction in its range 

 that, ''in the opinions of the best judges, twenty years iience it 

 will be known only in history and from museum specimens." In 

 view of this it has seemed desirable to present a monograph of 

 the sole representative of the Parrot fiimily in the United vStates, 

 illustrated with a map, showing its former range, and as nearly 

 as possible its present distribution. 



The genus Conurus is exclusively American, and was hrst 

 characterized by Kuhl in 1S20, who referred to it eighty-one 

 species. In 1610-12 the Carolina Paroquet was tirst mentioned 

 by Strachey,* with the customary brevity and crudeness of the 

 time, and in 175S Linnreus gave the first systematic description 

 of it under the generic name of Psitlacits (all Parrots, from what- 

 ever country, being at that time grouped in this genus). Kuhl, 

 b.ovvever, was the first to separate the Paroquets from the true 

 Parrots, and his list of eighty-one species by subsequent elimina- 

 tions has been reduced to about fifty, tiistributed over Mexico, 

 Central, and the whole of South America, with the present 

 species — by far the most beautiful of all — as the sole representa- 

 tive of the genus in the United States. 



In comparing the disappearance of the Paroquet with the rapid 

 extermination of other well known birds, one cannot fail to see 

 a similarity between the several cases, and note in each the ruth- 

 less and wanton destruction wielded by the hand of man. The 

 Great Aide and Lal^-ador Duck are birds of the past, yet fifty 

 years ago they were plentiful on our eastern coast. The Passenger 

 Pigeons formerly swarmed by millions throughout the States east 

 of the Plains, — today they are a rarity, and their nesting places, 

 which once excited the curiosity of the world, and served as a source 



* The Historie of Travaile into Virginia Brittania, by William Strachey, 1610-12, 



