SHADOWS FROM THE PAST 



CAROLINA PAROQUET 



How many children who enjoy feeding Polly 

 on her perch and hearing her ludicrous imita- 

 tions of the talk and other sounds around her, 

 ever dream that there is a wild Parrot numbered 

 among our native birds? Not so accomplished a 

 linguist, but quite as brightly colored and curi- 

 ously formed, is this pretty Poll of the woods 

 whom so few of us have ever seen: its head and 

 neck being yellow and orange, and the rest of its 

 plumage green. 



This Paroquet was once an abundant bird 

 throughout the Southern States. How it would 

 delight us today to see a pair of them, about 

 as large as a Dove, clambering parrot-fashion 

 among the branches of our trees; or to be 

 allowed a peep at two white eggs in a Paroquet 

 nest! But that is not to be. In order to find 

 one of these birds today it would be necessary 

 to search thoroughly the remotest and loneliest 

 counties of Florida, where the rarer wild species 

 are making their last stand in the struggle for 

 existence, in dense "hammocks" of tropical 

 growth surrounded and protected by the silence 

 of the Everglades. Here also the Roseate Spoon^ 



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