BIRDS OF KANSAS. 315 



ground, to propound the argument with more telling effect; 

 then they face about to address the rear, that all may alike feel 

 the force of their logic; they draw themselves up to the fullest 

 height, outwardly calm and self-contained, pausing in the dis- 

 course to note its effect upon the audience and collect their wits 

 for the next rhetorical flourish. And no distant likeness between 

 these frothy orators and others is found in the celerity with 

 which they subside and seek their holes on the slightest intima- 

 tion of danger." 



Eggs usually four to seven (as high as eleven have been taken), 

 1.22x1.04; pure white; in form, subspherical. 



ORDER PSITTACI. 



PARROTS, MACAWS, PAROQUETS, ETC. 



"Bill enormously thick, short, high, much arched from the base; the upper 

 mandible strongly hooked at the end, cered at base and freely movable by com- 

 plete articulation with the forehead; the under mandible with short, broad, 

 truncate symphysis. Feet permanently zygodactyle by reversion of the fourth 

 toe, which articulates by a double facet. Tarsi reticulate. Syrnix peculiarly 

 constructed, of three pairs of intrinsic mucles. Tongue short, thick, fleshy. 

 Sternum entire or fenestrate. Clavicles weak, defective or wanting. Orbit more 

 or less completed by approach or union of postorbital process and lachrymal. 

 Altricial; psilopsedic." 



FAMILY PSITTACIDJE. 



"Bill greatly hooked; the maxilla movable and with a cere at the base. 

 Nostrils in the base of the bill. Feet scansorial, covered with granulated 

 scales." 



GENUS CONURUS KUHL. 



"Tail long, conical and pointed; bill stout; cheeks feathered, but in some 

 species leaving a naked ring around the eye; cere feathered to the base of 

 the bill." 



Connrus carolinensis (LINN.). 



CAROLINA PAROQUET. 

 PLATE XXI. 



Formerly quite a common resident in the eastern portion of 

 the State, but as the settlements increased along the timbered 

 streams their natural home they rapidly disappeared, and 



