-oo PARROT. 



This Maccaw was formerly pretty common at Si. Domingo* ; 

 but in proportion as that ifland has become more inhabited, 

 thefe birds are rarely met with. They merely live in the moifl 

 woods, efpecially thofe planted with a particular kind of palm -f-, 

 on which it feeds, and of which there are large forefts in the 

 marfhy wet favannahs. They are oftener ken in pairs J than in 

 greater numbers, and are fought after by the natives for food j 

 but fometimes faid to prove hurtful, having a poifonous quality, 

 arifing from their being driven by hunger to feed on the Man- 

 shineel apple, which on fuch occafions does not prove in the leaft 

 injurious to the bird. They make their nefts in decayed trees* 

 enlarging the hole with their bill, where it is not of a fize fuffi- 

 cient for the purpofe, lining the infide with feathers. The female 

 lays two eggs at a time, the fize of thofe of a Pigeon, and fpotted 

 like thofe of a Partridge. They breed twice in a year, and the 

 male and female fit on the neft alternately, as well as reciprocally 

 nurfe and feed the young birds. Thefe are tamed with great- 

 eafe, but the old birds are quite indocile. It is faid that the 



* Uift.desoif. vol. vi. p.. 183-. 



\ Palmier lataniei — perhaps what is called the Maccaw tree. See Hughes Hift- 

 Barbad. p.. 114. — Borajfus flabeliifer. Linn-? 



\ Yet fometimes in vaft flights ; for. in An/on's Voyage, after defcribing the 

 beautie-s of a fine water- fall at the north eaft point of the Ifle of Shiibo, " while 

 we were viewing it," fays he, " there came in fight a prodigious flight of Mac- 

 catus, which hovering over this fpot, and often wheeling and playing on the 

 wing about it, afforded a moft brilliant appearance by the glittering of the ftin 

 on their variegated plumage : fo that fome of the fpettators cannot refrain from 

 a kind of tranfport when they recount the complicated beauties which occurred 

 in this extraordinary water-fall." Anfons Voy, p. zjS.. 



Maccaws 



