192 
PARROTS AND PAROQUETS 
Unlike the pygmy owls the elf owls are nocturnal, spending the 
day either in thickets or old woodpecker holes. Major Bendire says 
they become active soon after sundown. He has had them come to 
his camp, attracted probably by the insects which gathered about 
the guard fire through the night. 
When resting in the daytime the little owls are not too stupid to 
protect themselves, as is shown by a curious experience Mr. F. 
Stephens had with one. He startled the owl in a willow thicket, and 
when he found it in the dense tangle, as he says, it was “sitting on 
a branch with its face toward me and its wing held up, shield fash¬ 
ion, before its face. I could just see its eyes over the wing, and 
had it kept them shut I might have overlooked it, as they first 
attracted my attention. It had drawn itself into the smallest possi¬ 
ble compass so that its head formed the widest part of its outline. 
I moved around a little to get a better chance to shoot, as the bush 
was very thick, but whichever way I went, the wing was always 
interposed, and when I retreated far enough for a fair shot, I could 
not tell the bird from the surrounding bunches of leaves. At length, 
losing patience, I fired at random and it fell. Upon going to pick it 
up I was surprised to find another which I had not seen before, and 
which must have been struck by a stray shot.” (Quoted by Bendire.) 
ORDER PSITTACI: PARROTS, MACAWS, 
PAROQUETS, ETC. 
FAMILY PSITTACIDiE: PARROTS AND PAROQUETS. 
GENUS RHYNCHOPSITTA. 
382.1. Rhynchopsitta pachyrhyncha (Swains.). Thick¬ 
billed Parrot. 
Bill large, tip of lower mandible elongated, cut off, and flattened ; tail 
graduated for about one third its length ; cere densely feathered, conceal¬ 
ing the nostrils. Adults: bill blackish, body green except for poppy red on 
forepart of head and wings, and lemon yellow under wing coverts. Young: 
similar, but bill mainly whitish and red restricted. Length: 16.00-16.75, 
wing 8.50-10.50, tail 6.30-7.00, graduated for 2.25-2.35. 
Distribution. — Mountains bordering tablelands of Mexico; northward 
casually to the Chiricahua Mountains, Arizona. 
A flock of nine or ten thick-billed parrots seen by Mr. Lusk in the 
Chiricahua Mountains came, as he says, scolding, chattering, and 
calling up a canyon to the edge of the pinon pine belt, where they 
devoted themselves to getting the pinones. ‘ ‘ Investigation of their 
stomachs,” he says, “ showed nothing but a plentiful quantity of 
very immature pinones wrested from their cavities in the hearts of 
the hard, green cones by their powerful beaks.” 
