534 NATURAL HISTORY. 



parakeet must soon be exterminated. One Enterprise part}* would some- 

 times shoot forty or fifty at a few discharges for sport, as they hover 

 about when any are shot until the whole flock is destroyed.' From its 

 habit of feeding upon the tender maize in autumn, it is somewhat injuri- 

 ous to the farmer, and for this cause, also, many are killed. It is also 

 more or less hunted as a game-bird. It is well known that the parakeet 

 formerly inhabited large portions of the United States where it is now 

 never seen, and the cause of its disappearance has been deemed a mystery. 

 Such facts as these, however, seem to render clear what its ultimate fate 

 must be in the United States — extermination." 



In color this bird is green, shading off into a yellow below ; its fore- 

 head is brick-red, and the rest of its head and its neck yellow. Besides 

 cultivated grain, it is very fond of the seed of the cockle-burr. Though it 

 occurs in our limits, we really know far less of its habits than we do of 

 many rarer or far more distant forms. All of the parrots, however, are 

 cunning, and replace the monkeys among the birds. They go in large 

 flocks, and are eminently gregarious. 



As among other groups of birds, so among the parrots, species have been 

 exterminated within comparatively few years. One species, for instance, 

 was found on but a single island of only about five square miles' area ; this 

 is now gone. So with the Madagascar parrot. Even in this century it 

 was brought alive to Europe, but to-day it is extinct. Specimens are even 

 more rare than of the great auk, the Labrador duck, or Pallas' s cormorant ; 

 for they are only to be found in the museums of Paris and Vienna. 



Picaeian Birds. 



For the large assemblage of birds now to be taken up, there is no col- 

 lective common name ; the one chosen is the nearest approach to one, and 

 implies that all the forms included bear a more or less distinct resemblance 

 to a woodpecker. The group contains nearly two thousand species ; we 

 can afford but little space to them, and hence think it best to largely 

 confine our remarks to the most interesting and foreign forms, leaving the 

 more commonplace and many of our native birds unmentioned, except as 

 they are represented by cuts. These remarks will also apply to the next 

 group, — the Passeres. This, however, is the less to be regretted since 

 books abound treating of these forms, while the birds already enumerated 

 have been more neglected in popular works. 



First in order come the cuckoo-like forms, and of these attention must 

 first be directed to the plantain-eaters and touracous, all of which are con- 

 fined to Africa. The most remarkable feature about these birds is the 



