30 PARROTS AND MACAWS 



northward in summer to Maryland, Lake Erie and Iowa, and 

 as far west as Colorado; but now all that is only so much 

 history. To this charming little green-and-yellow bird, we 

 are in the very act of bidding everlasting farewell. Ten 

 specimens remain alive in captivity, six of which are in the 

 Cincinnati Zoological Garden, three are in the Washington 

 Zoological Park and one is in the Xew York Zoological 

 Park. 



Regarding wild specimens, it is possible that some yet re- 

 main in some obscure and neglected corner of Florida; but 

 it is extremely doubtful whether the world ever will find any 

 of them alive. Mrs. Minnie Moore Willson, of Kissimee. 

 Florida, reports the species as totally extinct in Florida. 

 Unless we would strain at a gnat, we may just as well enter 

 this species in the dead class; for there is no reason to hope 

 that any more wild specimens ever will be found. 



The former range of this species embraced the whole south- 

 eastern and central United States. From the Gulf it ex- 

 tended to Albany, Xew York, northern Ohio and Indiana, 

 northern Iowa, Nebraska, central Colorado and eastern 

 Texas, from which it will be seen that once it was widely dis- 

 tributed. It was shot because it was destructive to fruit and 

 for its plumage, and many were trapped alive, to be kept in 

 captivity. I know that one colony, near the mouth of the 

 Sebastian River, east coast of Florida, was exterminated in 

 1898 by a local hunter, and I regret to say that it was done in 

 the hope of selling the living birds to a Xew York bird-dealer. 

 By holding bags over the holes in which the birds were nest- 

 ing, the entire colonv, of about sixteen birds, was caught. 



