466 The Cuckoo-like Birds 



in a single genus (Nasiterna) with a round dozen species, and are distinguished 

 at once from their relatives by the very short, squared tail, the feathers having 

 the shafts pointed and projecting beyond the webs, while the bill is shaped as 

 in the Cockatoos, but with the cere in the form of a broad band, which, however, 

 becomes narrower above. The wings are relatively long and pointed and when 

 folded reach to or beyond the tip of the tail, and the toes are very long and 

 thin. The sexes are unlike in coloration, the males being gorgeously decked in 

 green, with more or less of yellow, red, and blue, while the females are similar 

 but much duller plumaged. 



The American Sharp-tailed Parrots. For the first time, in considering 

 the great assemblage of Parrots, have we come to the New World, which is 

 really exceedingly rich in these birds. The present group is a large one, em- 

 bracing sixteen genera and over one hundred species, and ranges from the 

 southern borders of the United States to Patagonia, being most in evidence in 

 Central America and northern South America. The most marked external 

 character is the long and graduated tail, with the individual feathers tapering 

 into a point and the middle pair always the longest. The bill is strong, almost 

 always deeper than long, while the cere is naked or sometimes feathered. 

 Green is the prevailing color of the plumage, though some species are mainly 

 yellow or blue, and red is by no means absent. It embraces the splendid 

 Macaws, as well as a host of smaller and less brilliant forms. 



Macaws. Brazil and adjacent Paraguay is the home of two genera and four 

 species of large Macaws which are characterized by an incomplete orbital ring and 

 a plumage which is blue throughout. The first of the genera (Anodorhynchus), 

 separated largely on the ground of feathered lores, is best exemplified by the 

 Hyacinthine Macaw (A. hyacinthinus) of the central provinces of Brazil. It 

 is a splendid bird but little under three feet in length, the plumage being nearly 

 uniform cobalt-blue, relieved by bright yellow skin about the eyes and at the 

 base of the lower mandible, and the black, very powerful bill. This appears 

 to be everywhere a rare species, occurring, according to Riker, about the inland 

 ponds in the dense forests of the interior, where it feeds upon the fruit of a palm 

 peculiar to these localities. Some of the palm fruits are so hard that it requires 

 a sharp blow with a heavy hammer to break one, yet they are crushed to pulp 

 by the powerful bills. Its nesting habits, as we are told by Azara, differ from 

 those of most other Macaws in that they excavate a hole in the river bank for 

 their nest instead of placing it in a hollow tree; the eggs are said to be two in 

 number. In Spix's Macaw (Cyanopsittacus spixi) of the province of Bahia, 

 Brazil, the lores are naked and the general color also blue, but parts of the head 

 are more or less grayish; its length is but twenty-two inches. 



In the true Macaws (Ara) so called, the bony orbital ring is complete, and 

 the lores, and to a greater or less extent the cheeks, are naked. There are fifteen 

 recognized species, which range from Mexico to South America as far as Bolivia 

 and Paraguay, most of them being extremely brilliant in coloration, though the 

 colors are often violently contrasted. Thus one of the handsomest and best- 

 known is the Blue-and-yellow Macaw (A. ararauna), which enjoys an extensive 



