LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



By Charles Bendiee, Captain and Brevet Major, U. S. Army (retired). 



PSITTAOEOUS BIRDS. 



Family PSITTACIDiE. Parrots, Paroquets, etc. 

 I. Conurus carolinensis (Linn^us). 



CAROLINA PAROQUET. 



Psittacus carolinensis Linn^us, Systema Natiiraj, ed. 10, I, 1758, 97. 

 Conurus carolinensis Lesson, Traite d'Ornitliologie, 1S31, 21 1. 

 (B 65, C 315, E 392, C 460, U 382.) 



Geographical range : Flor.ida aud tlie Indian Territory, sporadically only; casually 

 along tlie Gulf coast and the Lower Mississippi Valley, north to southwestern Missouri. 



The range of the Carolina Paroqnet, the only representative in the United 

 States of this numerous family, is yearly becoming more and more restricted, 

 and is now mainly confined to some of the less accessible portions of southern 

 Florida, and to very limited areas in the sparsely settled sections of the Indian 

 Territory, where it is only a question of a few years before its total extermination 

 will be accomplished. Formerly this species had quite an extensive distribution 

 in the United States, ranging from Florida, the Gulf, and the South Atlantic 

 States generally, north to Maryland, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and 

 Nebraska, and casually even to Michigan and New York, while west it reached 

 to Texas and eastern Colorado. It was especially common then throughout 

 the entire Mississippi Valley and the heavily timbered bottom lands of the larger 

 tributaries of this stream. 



With the more general settlement of the regions inhabited by these birds, 

 their numbers have gradually but steadily diminished, and even as early as 1832 

 Audubon speaks of their not being nearly as common as formerly. As late, 

 however, as 1860 they were still comparatively numerous throughout the Gulf 

 States and the Mississippi, Arkansas, and White River valleys; and I well 

 remember seeing large flocks of these birds throughout that year in the vicinity 

 of Fort Smith, Arkansas, and near several of the military posts in the Indian 

 Territory. 



16896— Xo. 3 1 1 



