CAROLINA ARARA. 
103 
numbers killed by one discharge, as the whole flock 
alight and feed close to each other. The work of 
destruction, moreover, is not confined to a single 
shot; for we are told, that “ the survivors rise, 
shriek, fly round for a few minutes, and again alight 
on the very place of most imminent danger. The 
gun is kept at work ; eight, ten, or even twenty are 
killed at every discharge, the living birds, as if con- 
scious of the death of their companions, sweep over 
their bodies, screaming as loud as ever, hut still re- 
turn to the stack to be shot at, until so few remain 
alive, that the farmer does not consider it worth his 
while to spend more of his ammunition.” Injurious, 
however, as they no doubt frequently are to the 
cultivator, their principal food is said to be the 
Cockle-hurr, the seed of the Zanlhium strumarium, 
a plant that abounds throughout the rich alluvial 
lands of the States west of the Alleghany Moun-. 
tains : it is a weed noxious to the husbandman on 
many accounts, and the consumption of its seed by 
the Parrots must therefore be of some advantage, 
though that is unfortunately for them greatly dimi- 
nished, from the circumstance of its possessing a 
perennial root. 
Like the rest of the group to which it belongs, 
the Carolina Arara appears incapable of learning to 
articulate words, though, when captured, it soon be- 
comes tame, and will eat almost immediately after- 
wards. Wilson gives a long and interesting account 
of an individual that he had wounded slightly in the 
