30 BIRDS OF LA PLATA 



GREEN PARRAKEET 



BoWorhynchm monachm 



Green ; front grey ; wings blackish with sh'ght bluish edgings ; 

 beneath grey; bill whitish; length ii inches. Female similar. 



The Common Green Parrakeet, called Cotorra or 

 Catita in the vernacular, is a well-known resident 

 species in the Argentine Republic. It is a lively, 

 restless bird, shrill-voiced, and exceedingly voci- 

 ferous, living and breeding in large communiti^, 

 and though it cannot learn to speak so distinctly 

 as some of the larger Parrots, it is impossible to 

 observe its habits without being convinced that it 

 shares in the intelligence of the highly-favoured order 

 to which it belongs. 



In Buenos Ayres it was formerly very much more 

 numerous than it is now; but it is exceedingly 

 tenacious of its breeding-places, and there are some 

 few favoured localities where it still exists in large 

 colonies, in spite of the cruel persecution all birds 

 easily killed are subjected to in a country where 

 laws relating to such matters are little regarded, 

 and where the agricultural population is chiefly 

 Italian. At Mr. Gibson's residence near Cape San 

 Antonio, on the Atlantic coast, there is still a large 

 colony of these birds inhabiting the Tala woods 

 (Celtis tala), and I take the following facts from one 

 of his papers, contributed many years ago to the Ibis, 

 on the ornithology of the district. 



He describes the woods as being full of their nests. 



