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paroquets in a certain locality in Florida, during a visit in the 

 winter of 1896-97. While standing in thickish cover, near a small 

 sheet of clear spring water, the flock of birds dashed in to drink. 

 This they accomplished by all hovering together over the surface 

 of the spring. The sun at the time shown in directly upon them, 

 and, as Mr. Ridgway says, with the effect of not only reflecting 

 the beautiful picture of these elegant forms into the water, over 

 which they gracefully sustained themselves en masse, while they 

 drank of it, but at the same time enhanced to a marvelous de- 

 gree the exquisite tints of the birds themselves. 



Personally, I have seen this paroquet alive in a wild state only 

 a few times. Once, I saw a single specimen in a cornfield in the 

 eastern part of the State of Kansas. It was early in the SO's. 

 I have, up to the present time, never collected the bird. 



Further on in his account Wilson says " they are particularly 

 attached to the large sycamores, in the hollow of the trunks and 

 branches of which they generally roost, thirty or forty, and some- 

 times more, entering at the same hole. Here they cling close to 

 the sides of the tree, holding fast by the claws and also by the 

 bills. They appear to be fond of sleep, and often retire to their 

 holes during the day, probably to take their regular siesta. They 

 are extremely sociable, and fond of each other, often scratching 

 each other's heads and necks, and always, at night, nestling as 

 close as possible to each other, preferring, at that time, a perpen- 

 dicular position, supported by their bill and claws." This nest- 

 ling as close together as possible while in the hollow trunk of a 

 tree, I purposely quote, because we find in the Ornithological 

 Hall of the Smithsonian Institution a large hollow trunk of a 

 tree, in the inside of which a number of mounted specimens of 

 the Carolina paroquet have been placed, clinging to the inner 

 surface in the manner described by Wilson, with the exception 

 that the individuals have been suspended at very unsociable dis- 

 tances apart, something, I am quite sure, these birds would never 

 have been guilty of in a state of nature. 



When these paroquets were plenty in this country a very gen- 

 eral opinion prevailed that their heads and intestines, if eaten 

 by cats, would surely prove fatal to them. This was universally 

 said to be because the cockleburs upon which the birds so com- 

 monly fed would invariably act as a fatal poison to the afore- 

 said felines. Wilson tried many times to prove or disprove the 

 truth of this statement, but usually some trivial circumstance 



