2 LIFE HISTORIES OF NORTH AMERICAN BIRDS. 



At present it is very doubtful if the Carolina Paroquet can be considered 

 a regular resident anywhere excepting the localities alreadymentioned, and it 

 is rapidly disappearing from these, especially the Indian Territory. Ocea- 

 sionally a pair are still seen in southern Louisiana, and as late as the fall of 

 18 ( J1 Mr. Thurman S. Powell saw a couple at the Linchpin Camping Grounds, 

 Stone County, Missouri. Although rather restless birds. at all times, they can 

 generally be considered as residents wherever found, roving about from place 

 to place in search of suitable- feeding grounds, and usually returning to the 

 same roosting place, some large hollow tree, to which they retire at night, 

 hooking or suspending themselves by' their powerful beaks and claws to the 

 inner rough wall of the cavity. 



Previous to the more extensive settlement of the country, their food consisted 

 of the seeds of the cocklebur* (Xantheum. strumarivm), the round seed balls of 

 the sycamore, those of the cypress, pecan and beech nuts, the fruit of the 

 papaw, (Asimina trilobatd), mulberries, wild grapes, and various other wild berries. 

 According to Mr. J. F. Menge, they also feed, on the seeds extracted from pine 

 cones and those of the burgrass, or sand bur (Cencliras tribuloides), one of the 

 most noxious weeds known. They are also rather fond of cultivated fruit, and 

 in Florida they have acquired a taste for both oranges and bananas. They are 

 also partial to different kinds of grains while in the milk. Mr. Frank M. Chapman 

 states that while collecting on the Sebastian. River, Florida, in March, 1890, he 

 found them feeding on the milky seeds of a species of thistle (Cirsium lecontei), 

 which, as far as he could learn, constituted their entire food at that season. He 

 says: "Not a patch of thistles did we find which had not been, visited by them, 

 the headless stalks showing clearly where the thistles had been neatly severed 

 by the sharp, chisel-like bill, while the ground beneath favorite trees would be 

 strewn with the scattered down." 1 



According to the observations of Mr. August Koch, published in "Forest 

 and Stream," September 24, 1891, they also feed on the red blossoms of a species 

 of maple {Acer rubrum). In the vicinity of Fort Smith, Arkansas, during the 

 fall and winter of 1860-61, I frequently saw flocks of these birds in osage orange 

 -trees, which attain a large size here, biting off the fruit and feeding on the 

 tender buds; here they were also accused of doing considerable injury to Indian 

 com while still in the milk, and many were shot for this reason, and there is no 

 doubt that they do more or less damage to both fruit and grain. 



Although clumsydooking birds on the ground, it is astonishing how readily 

 they move about on the slenderest limbs in trees, frequently hanging head down, 

 like Crossbills and Redpolls, nipping off the seed bulbs of the sycamores, etc., 

 and swinging themselves, with the assistance of their powerful beaks, from the 

 extremity of one branch to another. 



Their flight, which is more or less undulating, resembles both that of the 

 Passenger Pigeon and again that of the Falcons; it is extremely swift and 

 graceful, enabling them, even when flying in rather compact flocks, to dart in 



1 Proceedings of the Linnajan Society, New York, for the year ending March 7, 1890. 



