104 
CAROLINA ARARA. 
wing, during one of his excursions, and which he 
carried for a great distance in his pocket. It soon 
became familiarized to confinement, learnt to know 
its name, to come when called on, to sit on his 
shoulder, climb up his clothes, eat from his mouth, 
&c. On account of its inability to articulate, and 
its loud disagreeable screams, it is seldom kept 
caged in America ; and, as Audubon observes, “ the 
woods are best fitted for them, and there the rich- 
ness 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.” According to this 
author, their nest, or rather the place where they 
deposit their eggs, is the bottom of the cavities of 
decayed trees. “ Many females,” he observes, “ de- 
posit their eggs together,” and the number laid by 
each individual, he believes is two — a number which 
seems to prevail throughout the great body of the 
family. The eggs are round, and of a light green- 
ish white ; and the young, when excluded, and be- 
fore they acquire their feathers, are covered with a 
soft down. The plumage of the first few months is 
green, but towards autumn they acquire a frontlet 
of carmine. Upon the ground they are slow and 
awkward, walking as if incommoded by their tail. 
When wounded, and attempted to be laid hold of, 
they turn to bite with open bill, and, if successful, 
inflict a very severe wound. They are said to de- 
light in sand or gravelly banks, where they way fre- 
