THE CAROLINA PARROT. 309 



way. They are incapable of articulating words, however much care and 

 attention may be bestowed upon their education; and their screams are so 

 disagreeable as to render them at best very indifferent companions. The 

 woods are the habitation best fitted for them, and there the richness of their 

 plumage, their beautiful mode of flight, and even their screams, afford 

 welcome intimation that our darkest forests and most sequestered swamps 

 are not destitute of charms. 



They are fond of sand in a surprising degree, and on that account are 

 frequently seen to alight in flocks along the gravelly banks about the creeks 

 and rivers, or in the ravines of old fields in the plantations, when they 

 scratch with bill and claws, flutter and roll themselves in the sand, and pick 

 up and swallow a certain quantity of it. For the same purpose, they also 

 enter the holes dug by our Kingfisher. They are fond of saline earth, for 

 which they visit the different licks interspersed in our woods. 



Our Parakeets are very rapidly diminishing in number; and in some 

 districts, where twenty-five years ago they were plentiful, scarcely any are 

 now to be seen. At that period, they could be procured as far up the 

 tributary waters of the Ohio as the Great Kenhawa, the Scioto, the heads of 

 Miami, the mouth of the Manimee at its junction with Lake Erie, on the 

 Illinois river, and sometimes as far north-east as Lake Ontario, and along the 

 eastern districts as far as the boundary line between Virginia and Maryland. 

 At the present day, very few are to be found higher than Cincinnati, nor is 

 it until you reach the mouth of the Ohio that Parakeets are met with in con- 

 siderable numbers. I should think that along the Mississippi there is not 

 now half the number that existed fifteen years ago. 



Their flesh is tolerable food, when they are young, on which account 

 many of them are shot. The skin of their body is usually much covered 

 with the mealy substances detached from the roots of the feathers. The 

 head especially is infested by numerous minute insects, all of which shift 

 from the skin to the surface of the plumage, immediately after the bird's 

 death. Their nest, or the place in which they deposit their eggs, is simply 

 the bottom of such cavities in trees as those to which they usually retire at 

 night. Many females deposit their eggs together. I am of opinion that the 

 number of eggs which each individual lays is two, although I have not been 

 able absolutely to assure myself of this. They are nearly round, and of a 

 light greenish-white. The young are at first covered with soft down, such 

 as is seen on young Owls. During the first season, the whole plumage is 

 green; but towards autumn a frontlet of carmine appears. Two years, how- 

 ever, are passed before the male or female are in full plumage. The only 

 material differences which the sexes present externally are, that the male is 

 rather larger, with more brilliant plumage. 



