4, Mr. E. Gibson on the Ornithology of 
To show how little does shyness enter into their constitu- 
tion, I have known seventy-five to be shot in the garden in 
the course of a forenoon, the fowler standing in the open, 
close to a dead tree, which formed their favourite perch on 
arriving from the surrounding woods. The Basques and 
Italians who come from the neighbouring township for a 
day’s Perroquet-shooting, scorn to fire at any group that 
will not yield four or five dead birds at least, and, indifferent 
shots as they are, kill as many as they can carry. Apropos 
of these fellows, I once came upon one who, having just 
reloaded his old gun, was in the act of recapping it. To 
do so he had placed the muzzle against a fallen tree, and, 
with the butt jammed into the pit of his stomach, was pull- 
ing up the dog-heads with one hand while he put on the 
caps with the other, ‘‘con que me fui” (“upon which 1 
went”), as the Spaniards would say; for I incontinently 
turned and fied ! 
The flight of B. monachus is rapid, with quick flutters of 
the wings, which seem never to be raised to the level of 
the body, nor yet brought sufficiently forward. Like Conurus 
patagonus, too, the straight unexpanded tail fails to keep the 
bird on an even keel as it were, first one side rising higher 
and then the other. 
While the presence of Carancho or Chimango is ignored, 
any other bird of prey is generally mobbed when it first 
appears in the woods. All the Perroquets rise in a regular 
crowd, and hover over and above it, screaming and chat- 
tering angrily. 
Young birds are sometimes taught to speak ; but their arti- 
culation is, as a rule, indistinct. I remember hearing of one, 
however, which was seized and carried off by a Carancho, 
giving utterance to its despair in a singularly appropriate 
exclamation—‘‘ Ay de mi, ay de mi” (alas! alas!). Imita- 
tions of poultry &c. are very faithfully rendered. One, which 
had escaped from its owner, long retained the hoarse “‘ Pretty 
Poll” it had acquired in captivity, no doubt to the envy of 
its uneducated relatives, and to my frequent bewilderment 
as I strolled through the wood it frequented. 
