CAROLINA PAROQUET. 439 



timber with perfect ease. Their call-notes are shrill and disagreeable, a kind of grating, 

 metallic shriek, and they are especially noisy while on the wing. Among the calls is 

 one resembling the shrill cries of a Goose, which is frequently uttered for minutes at a 

 time. Formerly they moved about in good-sized and compact flocks, often numbering 

 hundreds, while now it is a rare occurrence to see more than twenty together, more 

 often small companies of from six to twelve. When at rest in the middle of the day on 

 some favorite -tree, they sometimes utter low notes, as if talking to each other, but 

 more often they remain entirely silent, and are then extremely difficult to discover, as 

 their plumage harmonizes and blends thoroughly with the surrounding foliage. 



"They are most active in the early morning and again in the evening, while the 

 hotter parts of the day are spent in thick-foliaged and shady trees. They are partial 

 to heavily timbered bottom lands bordering the larger streams and the extensive cypress 

 swamps, which are such a common feature of many of our Southern States. Social 

 birds as they are, they are rarely seen alone, and if one is accidentally wounded, the 

 others hover around the injured one until sometimes the whole flock is exterminated. 

 This devotion to one another has cost them dearly, and many thousands have been 

 destroyed in this way. 



"Mr. E. A. Mcllhenny has kindly furnished me with the following notes on their 

 habits as observed by him in southern Louisiana, where the species was still compara- 

 tively abundant a few years ago, but has now nearly disappeared: 



'"The Carolina Paroquet may be looked for in this section about April 25, or 

 when the black mulberries begin to ripen. This fruit seemed to be their favorite food, 

 and in the morning, from sunrise to about seven o'clock, and in the evening, from five 

 o'clock to sunset, at which hours they feed, they were to be found in the mulberry 

 groves. They spent the rest of the day and roosted at night in the live-oak timber. 

 In the morning, just before sunrise, they mounted the tallest trees, congregating in small 

 bands, all the while talking at a great rate. As the sun rises they take flight for the 

 nearest mulberry grove, where they partake of their morning meal amidst a great 

 amount of noise. After they have eaten their fill, they generally go to the nearest 

 stream, where they drink and bathe; they then go to some dense oak timber, where 

 they pass the heat of the day. After they get in the oaks they rarely utter a sound. 

 In the afternoon they go through the same performance, with the exception of going to 

 the water.' 



"The flight of the Carolina Paroquet, once seen, is never to be forgotten; it is 

 undulating, something like the Woodpecker's, but very swift. While on the wing they 

 chatter and cry continually ; this cry sounds like qui, with the rising inflection on the i; 

 this is repeated several times, the last one being drawn out like qui-i-i-i. These birds 

 are rarely met with in the summer, and I do not think they nest here. They are most 

 plentiful in May and September. In the fall they feed on the fmit of the honey locust, 

 and are then more often seen on the ground." 



About the nesting habits of the Carolina Paroquet nothing definite is known. 

 None of our great and well-known ornithologists of the past and the present have ever 

 found the nest. Neither Wilspn, Audubon, and Nuttall, nor Allen, Coues, Ridgway, 

 Brewster, Bendire, Chapman, Scott, B. F. Goss, etc., who visited the home of this beau- 



