Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...
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Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ... Bulletin - United States National Museum - si-pddr - Smithsonian ...

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U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 133 PL. 13 ^mmt

BIRDS OF ARGENTINA, PARAGUAY, URUGUAY, AND CHILE 195 €ucalypts Avhere companies of screeching birds clambered about over them, or, as this was spring, added new material to the mass already accumulated. The nests were rough and unfinished externally, and as the larger ones were 2 meters in diameter often contained material sufficient to fill a wagon. The majority were placed 14 or 18 meters from the ground. After a tremendous storm in early November, I found that several of the nests had been dashed to the ground. The birds frequented trees, save when once or twice a day they flew out to drink at some channel in the marshes. On November 3 and 6 small bands were noted in a clump of isolated trees near the coast below Cape San Antonio, where the}'^ had apparently settled recently, and on November 16 between Lavalle and Santa Domingo a flock was seen in the iron work of a high wagon bridge. In southern Uruguay the monk parrakeet was common wherever trees offered shelter. A few were seen near La Paloma January 23, and at San "N^icente from January 25 to February 2 the species was common in extensive palm groves in the lowlands. In the low forested tract that bordered the Rio Cebollati below Lazcano from February 5 to 9 monk parrakeets frequented open pastures studded with trees, and were also found in the dense forest. Where scattered palm trees grew in small openings nearly every palm held one of the large stick nests of this bird, usually with a pair of parrakeets clambering over it. At this season the parrots fed on thistle heads in rank groAvths of these weeds that here have ruined thousands of acres of pasture. The thistle heads Avere nipped off from the stem and held in one foot while the bird extracted the seeds with the aid of bill and tongue. It was reported that monk parrakeets damaged maize extensively when the grain was ripening. Two were shot at Lazcano on February 8. Small flocks of monk parrakeets that were noted at Victorica, Pampa, on December 24, 27, and 29, were probably M. m. calita, as a specimen in the National Museum taken at the Estancia El Bosque near Nueva Galia, San Luis, a short distance farther north, belongs to that form. Since none were shot at Victorica the identity of the bird from that region is not wholly certain. MYIOPSITTA MONACHUS COTORRA (Vieillot) Psittacus cotorra Vieillot, Nouv. Diet. Hist. Nat., vol. 25, ISIT, p. 362. (Paraguay.) Psittacus coton^a of Vieillot based on Azara is a composite of ob- servations by Azara on the monk parrakeet in Buenos Aires and in Paraguay. Since the bulk of the notes refer to Paraguay, and the measurement of the bill, given as 8 lines, indicates the small northern bird, the type locality is here fixed as Paraguay. The name is thus available for the small northern subspecies.

U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 133 PL. 13<br />

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