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

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.