102 CAROLINA ARARA. 



author,* scarcely less graphic or original in his de- 

 scriptive powers, that of late years these birds have 

 rapidly diminished in number, and that they are 

 now almost banished from districts where formerly 

 they used to abound. " At that period," (speak- 

 ing of twenty- five years ago), " they could be 

 procured as far up the tributary waters of the Ohio 

 as the great Kenhawa, the Scioto, the heads of the 

 Miami, the mouth of the Mammee at its junction 

 with Lake Erie, on the Illinois river, and sometimes 

 as far north-east as Lake Ontario, and along the 

 eastern districts as far as the boundary line between 

 Virginia and Maryland. At the present day, few 

 are to be found higher than Cincinnati, nor is it un- 

 til you reach the mouth of the Ohio that parakeets 

 are met with in considerable numbers. I should 

 think that along the Mississippi there is not now 

 half the number that existed fifteen years ago." A 

 rapidly increasing population, attended by an ex- 

 tended cultivation, and the consequent destruction 

 of many of those ancient and decayed trees which 

 constituted the dormitories and breeding sites of the 

 species, as well as the war constantly waged against 

 them by the husbandman, as the depredators of the 

 orchard and corn-stacks, are probably the chief causes 

 of their rapid diminution in those parts which they 

 formerly enlivened with their gay and varied plu- 

 mage. We learn from both authors, that, when en- 

 gaged in feeding, they are easily approached, and 



* J. J. Audubon. 



