CAROLINA PAROQUET— MACAWS 135 



specimens bring very high prices. It ranges across 

 equatorial Africa and is very famihar as a cage-bird. 

 They live for many years, in captivity, and are very 

 interesting, extremely alert and performing many 

 droll and singular antics. The nestlings are naked 

 when first hatched, but soon become covered with a 

 dense, thick down. See Plate 7, Fig. 33. 



The Carolina Paroquet, or Conure, was imtil late 

 years very common throughout the southern parts of 

 the United States; now it is practically extinct, the 

 only breeding-ground known to exist being in one 

 or two covinties of Florida. The causes of its ex- 

 termination are many, but probably the chief one 

 was that it was destructive to crops and fruit-orchards. 

 These birds were easily destroyed from the fact 

 that when one of a flock was injured or killed, the 

 others would assemble about it, and this would happen 

 again and again, so that a hunter was able to shoot 

 numbers of them before any would make their escape. 



The colour is a delicate green over most of the body, 

 the head orange-yellow and the bill a rather light flesh- 

 colour. These birds are said to have roosted in a 

 peculiar manner, a number occupying the same hole 

 in a decayed tree and hanging by their bills and feet 

 to the edges. Whether, under the protection now ac- 

 corded it, the Carolina Paroquet will ever again be- 

 come common is a matter of doubt. This is the only 

 species native to the United States. See Plate 7, 

 Fig. 32. 



The gaudy Macaws, largest of the Parrot tribe, are 

 found only in South America. There are many spe- 

 cies. The best known is the Blue and Yellow, which 



