4 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



disappearance. Civilization does not agree with these birds, and as they 

 certainly do some damage to fruit in sections where they still exist, nothing else 

 than complete annihilation can be looked for. Like the Bison and the Passenger 

 Pigeon, their days are numbered. 



Considering how common this bird was only a few decades ago, it is 

 astonishing how little is really known about its nesting ' habits, and it is not 

 likely that we will be able to learn much more about them. The general 

 supposition is that they breed in hollow trees, such as cypress, oak, and sycamore, 

 and that they nest rather early in the season, while others think they nest rather 

 late. There are two eggs in the United States National Museum collection, No. 

 17709, in rather poor condition, which are entered as having been taken in 

 St. Mary's Parish, Louisiana, March, 1878. I have endeavored to obtain 

 some further particulars about them, but have been unsuccessful. One egg laid 

 in captivity by a bird in the possession of Mr. R. Ridgway was deposited in 

 August, 1877, and another in July, 1878, and one in September, 1883. There 

 are also a couple of eggs in the collection of the American Museum of Natural 

 History, New York City, collected by the late Dr. S. W. Wilson, of Georgia, 

 which I believe are genuine ; these are said to have been taken on April 26, 

 1855, from a hollow tree, the eggs being deposited on a few chips in the cavity ; 

 the exact locality where they were obtained is not given, but the collection 

 was chiefly made on St. Simon Island and in Wayne and Mcintosh counties, 

 Georgia. 



Mr. William Brewster, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, ever alert to obtain 

 new information about the habits of our birds, while on a visit to Florida elicited 

 the following, published by him in "The Auk" (Vol. VI, 1889, pp. 336, 337), 

 which is well worth inserting here. He says: "While in Florida, during Febru- 

 ary and March, 1889, I questioned everybody whom I met regarding the nesting 

 of the Parrakeet. Only three persons professed any knowledge on this subject- 

 The first two Avere both uneducated men, professional hunters of alligators 

 and plume birds. Each of them claimed to have seen Parrakeets' nests, which 

 they described as flimsy structures built of twigs and placed on the branches of 

 cypress trees. One of them said he found a nest only the previous summer 

 (1888), while fishing. By means of his pole he tipped the nest over and secured 

 two young birds which it contained. This account was so widely at variance 

 with what has been previously recorded regarding the manner of nesting of this 

 species that I considered it at the time as a mere fabrication, but afterwards 

 it was unexpectedly and most strongly corroborated by Judge R. L. Long, of 

 Tallahassee. The latter gentleman, who, by the way, has a very good general 

 knowledge of the birds of our Northern States, assured me that he had examined 

 many nests of the Parrakeet built precisely as above described. Formerly, when 

 the birds were abundant in the surrounding region, he used to find them breed- 

 ing in large colonies in the cypress swamps. Several of these colonies contained 

 at least a thousand birds each. They nested invariably in small cypress trees, 

 the favorite position being on a fork near the end of a slender horizontal branch. 



