CAROLINA PARROT. 
127 
neck, until about the beginning or middle of March, 
having those parts wholly green, except the front and 
cheeks, which are orange red in them as in the full 
grown birds. Towards the middle of March the yellow 
begins to appear, in detached feathers, interspersed 
among the green, varying in different individuals. In 
some which I killed about the last of that month, only 
a few green feathers remained among the yellow ; and 
these were fast assuming the yellow tint : for the colour 
changes without change of plumage. A number of 
these birds, in all their grades of progressive change 
from green to yellow, have been deposited in Mr Peale’s 
museum. 
What is called by Europeans the Illinois parrot 
( [psittacus pertinax ) is evidently the young bird in its 
imperfect colours. Whether the present species be 
found as far south as Brazil, as these writers pretend, 
I am unable to say ; but, from the great extent of 
country in which 1 have myself killed and examined 
these birds, I am satisfied that the present species, now 
described, is the only one inhabiting the United States. 
Since the foregoing was written, I have had an 
opportunity, by the death of a tame Carolina paroquet, 
to ascertain the fact of the poisonous effects of their 
head and intestines on cats. Having shut up a cat and 
her two kittens, (the latter only a few days old,) in a 
room with the head, neck, and whole intestines of the 
paroquet, I found, on the next morning, the whole 
eaten except a small part of the bill. The cat exhibited 
no symptom of sickness ; and, at this moment, three 
days after the experiment has been made, she and her 
kittens are in their usual health. Still, however, the 
effect might have been different, had the daily food of 
the bird been cockle burs, instead of Indian corn. 
