1889. ] General Notes. i $47, 
many nests of the Parrakeet built precisely as above described. Former- 
ly, when the birds were abundant in the surrounding region, he used to 
find them breeding in large colonies in the cypress swamps. Several of 
these colonies contained at least a thousand birds each. They nested in- 
variably in small cypress trees, the favorite position being on a fork near 
the end of a slender horizontal branch. Every such fork would be occu- 
pied, and, he has seen as many as forty or fifty nests in one small tree. 
Their nests closely resembled those of the Carolina Dove, being similarly 
composed of cypress twigs put together so loosely that the eggs were often 
visible from the ground beneath. The twigs of the cypress seemed to be 
preferred to those of any other kind of tree. The height at which the 
nests were placed varied from five or six feet to twenty or thirty feet. Mr. 
Long described the eggs as being of a greenish white color, unspotted. 
He did not remember the maximum number which he had found in one 
set, but thought it was at least four or five. He had often taken young 
birds from the nests to rear or to give to his friends. He knew of a small 
colony of Parrakeets breeding in Waukulla Swamp, about twenty miles 
from Tallahassee, in the summer of 1585, and believes that they still occur 
there in moderate numbers. 
It seems difficult to reconcile such testimony with the statements of 
Audubon, Wilson, and others that the Carolina Parrakeet lays its eggs in 
holiow trees. It may be, however, that, like the Crow Blackbird and some 
of the Owls, this Parrot nests both in holes and on branches, according to 
circumstances; at all events the above account has seemed to me to rest 
on evidence sufficiently good to warrant its publication. 
I may add in this connection that the wide-spread impression that the 
Parrakeet is on the verge of extinction, is not literally correct. A few are 
still found as far north in Florida as the Weekiva River bottom, while 
south of Kissimee they are still actually abundant over a region of con- 
siderable extent. Everywhere, however, they are decreasing fast, and 
unless steps are taken to protect them from the ravages of the specimen 
and plume hunters, who invariably shoot all that come in their way, the 
total extermination of the species can be a matter of only a few more 
years.—WILLIAM BREWSTER, Cambridge, Mass. 
Melanerpes carolinus Eating Oranges.—As corroborating Dr. Warren's 
account in his late report on the birds of Pennsylvania, it may be worth 
while to state that when at Enterprise, Florida, in February, 1889, I ob- 
served a Red-bellied Woodpecker eating the pulp of a sweet orange. He 
flew down to the ground and, hopping along rather clumsily, approached 
an orange, and for several minutes pecked atit in a slow deliberate way. 
When I showed myself he at once took flight, and sought shelter in the 
dense foliage of the trees above. Upon examining the orange, I found 
that it was decayed through the whole of one side. In the sound portion 
were three holes, each nearly as large as a silver dollar, with narrow strips 
of peel between them. The pulp had been eaten out quite to the middle 
of the fruit. Small pieces of rind were thickly strewn about the spot. 
Up searching closely I discovered several other oranges that had been 
