Family PSITTACIDÆ.—The Parrots
Char. Bill greatly hooked; the maxilla movable and with a cere at the base. Nostrils in the base of the bill. Feet scansorial, covered with granulated scales.
The above diagnosis characterizes briefly a family of the Zygodactyli having representatives throughout the greater part of the world, except Europe, and embracing about three hundred and fifty species, according to the late enumeration of Finsch,136 of which one hundred and forty-two, or nearly one half, are American (seventy Brazilian alone). The subfamilies are as follows:—
I. Stringopinæ. Appearance owl-like; face somewhat veiled or with a facial disk, as in the Owls.
II. Plyctolophinæ. Head with an erectile crest, of variable shape.
III. Sittacinæ. Head plain. Tail long, or lengthened, wedge-shaped or graduated.
IV. Psittacinæ. Head plain. Tail short or moderate, straight or rounded.
V. Trichoglossinæ. Tip of tongue papillose. Bill compressed; tip of maxilla internally smooth, not crenate; gonys obliquely ascending.
Of these, Nos. III and IV alone are represented in the New World, and only the Sittacinæ occur in the United States, with one species.
Subfamily SITTACINÆ
The lengthened cuneate tail, as already stated, distinguishes this group from the American Psittacinæ with short, square, or rounded tail. The genera are distinguished as follows:—
Sittace. Culmen flattened. Face naked, except in S. pachyrhyncha. Tail as long as or longer than wings.
Conurus. Culmen rounded. Face entirely feathered, except a curve around the eye. Tail shorter than wings.
Of the genus Sittace, which embraces eighteen species, two come sufficiently near to the southern borders of the United States to render it not impossible that they may yet be found to cross the border. Of one of these, indeed, (S. pachyrhyncha,) there is a specimen in the Museum of the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences, presented by J. W. Audubon as shot on the Rio Grande of Texas; and another (S. militaris) is common at Mazatlan, and perhaps even at Guaymas. There is considerable reason for doubt as to the authenticity of the alleged locality of the S. pachyrhyncha, but for the purpose of identification, should either species present itself, we give diagnoses in the accompanying foot-note.137
Genus CONURUS, Kuhl
Conurus, Kuhl, Consp. Psittac. 4, 1830.—Ib. Nova Acta K. L. C. Acad. X, 1830.
Gen. Char. Tail long, conical, and pointed; bill stout; cheeks feathered, but in some species leaving a naked ring round the eye; cere feathered to the base of the bill.
Conurus carolinensis.
1228
The preceding diagnosis, though not very full, will serve to indicate the essential characteristics of the genus among the Middle American forms with long pointed tails, the most prominent feature consisting in the densely feathered, not naked, cheeks. But one species belongs to the United States, though three others are found in Mexico, and many more in South and Central America. A few species occur in the West Indies.
PLATE LVI.
1. Conurus carolinensis. Ad., Mich., 1228.
2. Conurus carolinensis. Juv., Fla., 54812.
3. Setophaga picta. ♂ Guat., 30705.
4. Hylotomus pileatus. ♀ Pa., 1723.
5. Hylotomus pileatus. ♂ Selkirk Settlement, 51863.
6. Sphyropicus thyroideus. ♂ Cal., 16098.
Conurus carolinensis, Kuhl
PARAKEET; CAROLINA PARROT; ILLINOIS PARROT
Psittaca carolinensis, Brisson, Ornith. II, 1762, 138. Psittacus carolinensis, Linn. Syst. Nat. I, 1758, 97; 1766, 141 (nec Scopoli).—Wilson, Am. Orn. III, 1811, 89, pl. xxvi, fig. 1.—Aud. Orn. Biog. I, 1832, 135, pl. xxvi. Conurus carolinensis, Kuhl, Nova Acta K. L. C. 1830.—Bon. List, 1838.—Pr. Max. Cabanis Journ. für Orn. V, March, 1857, 97.—Baird, Birds N. Am. 1858, 57.—Finsch, Papagei. I, 1857, 478.—Scl. Cat. 1862, 347.—Allen, B. E. Fla. 308. Centurus carolinensis, Aud. Syn. 1839, 189.—Ib. Birds Am. IV, 1842, 306, pl. cclxxviii. Psittacus ludovicianus, Gm. Syst. I, 1788, 347. Psittacus thalassinus, Vieill. Ency. Meth. 1377. Conurus ludovicianus, Gray. Catal. Br. Mus. Psittac. 1859, 36 (makes distinct species from carolinensis). Carolina parrot, Catesby, Car. I, tab. xi.—Latham, Syn. I, 227.—Pennant, II, 242. Orange-headed parrot, Latham, Syn. I, 304.
Conurus carolinensis.
Sp. Char. Head and neck all round gamboge-yellow; the forehead, from above the eyes, with the sides of the head, pale brick-red. Body generally with tail green, with a yellowish tinge beneath. Outer webs of primaries bluish-green, yellow at the base; secondary coverts edged with yellowish. Edge of wing yellow, tinged with red; tibiæ yellow. Bill white. Legs flesh-color. Length, about 13.00; wing, 7.50; tail, 7.10. Young with head and neck green. Female with head and neck green; the forehead, lores, and suffusion round the eyes, dark red, and without the yellow of tibiæ and edge of wing. Size considerably less.
Hab. Southern and Southwestern States and Mississippi Valley; north to the Great Lakes and Wisconsin.
This species was once very abundant in the United States east of the Rocky Mountains, being known throughout the Southern States, and the entire valley of the Mississippi, north to the Great Lakes. Stragglers even penetrated to Pennsylvania, and one case of their reaching Albany, N. Y., is on record. Now, however, they are greatly restricted. In Florida they are yet abundant, but, according to Dr. Coues, they are scarcely entitled to a place in the fauna of South Carolina. In Western Louisiana, Arkansas, and the Indian Territory, they are still found in considerable numbers, straggling over the adjacent States, but now seldom go north of the mouth of the Ohio. We have seen no note of their occurrence south of the United States, and in view of their very limited area and rapid diminution in numbers, there is little doubt but that their total extinction is only a matter of years, perhaps to be consummated within the lifetime of persons now living. It is a question whether both sexes are similarly colored, as in most American Parrots, or whether the female, as just stated, lacks the yellow of the head. Several female birds killed in Florida in March agree in the characters indicated above for that sex; but the material at our command is not sufficient to decide whether all females are similarly marked, or whether the plumage described is that of the bird of the second year generally. There is no trace whatever of yellow on the head.
Habits. In determining the geographical distribution of the Carolina Parrot, a distinction should be made between its accidental occurrence and its usual and habitual residence. Strictly speaking, this species, though of roving habits, is not migratory. Its movements are irregular, and dependent upon the abundance or the scarcity of its food. Where it breeds, it is usually a permanent resident. An exceptional visit to a place cannot be taken as certain evidence that it will reappear in that locality.
When Wilson wrote, it inhabited the interior of Louisiana and the country lying upon the banks of the Mississippi and Ohio Rivers, and their tributary waters, even beyond the Illinois River, to the neighborhood of Lake Michigan, in latitude 42° north. The same writer insisted that, contrary to the generally received opinion, it was at that time resident in all those places. Eastward of the great range of the Alleghanies it has been very seldom seen north of the State of Maryland, though straggling parties have been occasionally observed among the valleys of the Juniata. Barton states that a very large flock of these birds was observed in January, 1780, about twenty-five miles northwest of Albany.
The occurrence of this species in midwinter so far to the north, and its constant residence west of the Alleghanies throughout the year in colder regions, justify the conclusion of its being a very hardy bird. In evidence of this, Wilson mentions the fact of his having seen a number of them, in the month of February, on the banks of the Ohio, in a snow-storm, flying about like Pigeons, and in full cry.
The very evident preference which the Carolina Parakeet evinces for western localities, though in the same parallel of latitude with those east of the Alleghanies, which it rarely or never visits, is attributed by the same attentive observer to certain peculiar features of the country to which it is particularly and strongly attached. These are the low, rich alluvial bottoms along the borders of creeks, covered with a gigantic growth of buttonwood, deep and impenetrable swamps of the cypress, and those peculiar salines—or, as they are called, salt-licks—so frequent throughout that region, all of which are regularly visited by the Parakeets. The great abundance of the seeds of the cockle-bur (Xanthium strumarium) is also given as a still greater inducement for their frequenting the banks of the Ohio and the Mississippi, where these plants are found in the greatest abundance. The seeds of the cypress-trees are another powerful attraction, while the abundance of the mast of the beech, on which it feeds freely, may explain their occasional visits to more northern regions, and even to places where they were before unknown.
In descending the Ohio in the month of February, Wilson met the first flock of Parakeets at the mouth of the Little Scioto. He was informed by an old inhabitant of Marietta that they were sometimes, though rarely, seen there. He afterwards observed flocks of them at the mouth of the Great and Little Miami, and in the neighborhood of the numerous creeks which discharge themselves into the Ohio. At Big Bone Lick, near the mouth of the Kentucky River, he met them in great numbers. They came screaming through the woods, about an hour after sunrise, to drink the salt water, of which, he says, they are remarkably fond.
Audubon, writing in 1842, speaks of the Parakeets as then very rapidly diminishing in number. In some regions where twenty-five years before they had been very plentiful, at that time scarcely any were to be seen. At one period, he adds, they could be procured as far up the tributary water of the Ohio as the Great Kanawha, the Scioto, the head of the Miami, the mouth of the Maumee at its junction with Lake Erie, and sometimes as far northeast as Lake Ontario. At the time of his writing very few were to be found higher than Cincinnati, and he estimated that along the Mississippi there was not half the number that had existed there fifteen years before.
According to Nuttall, this species constantly inhabits and breeds in the Southern States, and is so hardy as to make its appearance commonly, in the depth of winter, along the wooded banks of the Ohio, the interior of Alabama, and the banks of the Mississippi and Missouri, around St. Louis, and other places, when nearly all the other birds have migrated.
Its present habitat seems to be the Southern and Southwestern States, as far west as the Missouri. They occur high up that river, although none were seen or collected much farther west than its banks. In the enumeration of the localities from which the specimens in the Smithsonian collection were derived, Florida, Cairo, Ill., Fort Smith, Arkansas, Fort Riley, Kansas, Nebraska, and Bald Island, Missouri River, and Michigan are given.
In regard to the manner of nesting, breeding-habits, number of eggs in a nest, and the localities in which it breeds, I know nothing from my own personal observations, nor are writers generally better informed, with the single exception of Mr. Audubon. Wilson states that all his informants agreed that these birds breed in hollow trees. Several affirmed to him that they had seen their nests. Some described these as made with the use of no additional materials, others spoke of their employing certain substances to line the hollows they occupied. Some represented the eggs as white, others as speckled. One man assured him that in the hollow of a large beech-tree, which he had cut down, he found the broken fragments of upwards of twenty Parakeet’s eggs, which he described as of a greenish-yellow color. He described the nest as formed of small twigs glued to each other and to the side of the tree in the manner of the Chimney-Swallow! From all these contradictory accounts Wilson was only able to gather, with certainty, that they build in companies and in hollow trees. The numerous dissections which he made in the months of March, April, May, and June led him to infer that they commence incubation late in spring or very early in summer.
Mr. Audubon, who speaks from his own observations, describes their nests, or the places in which they deposit their eggs, as simply the bottom of such cavities in trees as those to which they usually retire at night. Many females, he thinks, deposit their eggs together; and he expresses the opinion that the number of eggs which each individual lays is two, although he was not able absolutely to assure himself of this. He describes them as nearly round, and of a light greenish-white. An egg of this species from Louisiana is of a rounded oval shape, equally obtuse at either end, and of a uniform dull-white color. It measures 1.40 by 1.10 inches.