162 CAROLINA PARROT. 



lightest and most diluted with yellow below; greater wing-cov- 

 erts, and roots of the primaries, yellow, slightly tinged with 

 green; interior webs of the primaries deep dusky purple, almost 

 black, exterior ones bluish green ; tail long, cuneiform, consist- 

 ing of twelve feathers, the exterior one only half the length, 

 the others increasing to the middle ones, which are streaked 

 along the middle with light blue; shafts of all the larger feath- 

 ers, and of most part of the green plumage, black; knees and 

 vent orange yellow; feet a pale whitish flesh colour; claws black; 

 bill white, or slightly tinged with pale cream; iris of the eye 

 hazel; round the eye is a small space, without feathers, covered 

 with a whitish skin; nostrils placed in an elevated membrane 

 at the base of the bill, and covered with feathers; chin wholly 

 bare of feathers, but concealed by those descending on each side; 

 from each side of the palate hangs a lobe or skin of a blackish 

 colour; tongue thick and fleshy; inside of the upper mandible, 

 near the point, grooved exactly like a file, that it may hold with 

 more security. 



The female differs very little in her colours and markings 

 from the male. After examining numerous specimens, the fol- 

 lowing appear to be the principal differences. The yellow on 

 the neck of the female does not descend quite so far; the inte- 

 rior vanes of the primaries are brownish instead of black; and 

 the orange red on the bend and edges of the wing is considera- 

 bly narrower; in other respects the colours and markings are 

 nearly the same. 



The young birds of the preceding year, of both sexes, are 

 generally destitute of the yellow on the head and neck, until 

 about the beginning or middle of March, having those parts 

 wholly green, except the front and cheeks, which are orange 

 red in them, as in the full grown birds. Towards the middle 

 of March, the yellow begins to appear in detached feathers, in- 

 terspersed among the green, varying in different individuals. 

 In some which I killed about the last of that month, only a few 

 green feathers remained among the yellow; and these were fast 

 assuming the yellow tint; for the colour changes without change 



