Page 38 - Our Vanishing Wild Life

16 OUR VANISHING WILD LIFE
Gosse's Macaw,—Ara gossei, (Roth.).—This species once in- habitedtheIslandofJamaica. Itwasexterminatedabout1800,andso far as known not one specimen of it is in existence.
Guadeloupe Macaw,—Ara guadeloupcnsis, (Clark).—All that is known of the life history of this large bird is that once it inhabited the GuadeloupeIslands. Thedateandhistoryofitsdisappearanceareboth unknown, and there is not one specimen of it in existence.
Yellow-Winged Green Parrot,—Amazona olivacea, (Gm.).—Of the history of this Guadeloupe species, also, nothing is known, and there appear to be no specimens of it in existence.
Purple Guadeloupe Parrakeet,—Anodorhynchus purpurescens, (Rothschild).—This is another dead species, that once lived in the Guade- loupe Islands, and passed away silently and unnoticed at the time, leaving no records of its existence, and no specimens.
The Carolina Parrakeet,—Conuropsis carolinensis, (Linn.), brings us down to the present moment. To this charming little green-and- yellow bird, we are in the very act of bidding everlasting farewell. Ten specimens remain alive in captivity, six of which are in the Cincinnati Zoological Garden, three are in the Washington Zoological Park and one is in the New York Zoological Park.
Regarding wild specimens, it is possible that some yet remain, in some obscure and neglected corner of Florida; but it is extremely doubtful whether the world ever will find any of them alive. Mrs. Minnie Moore Willson, of Kissimee, Fla., reports the species as totally extinct in Florida. Unless we would strain at a gnat, we may just as well enter this species in the dead class; for there is no reason to hope that any more wild specimens ever will be found.
The former range of this species embraced the whole southeastern andcentralUnitedStates. FromtheGulfitextendedtoAlbany,N.Y., northern Ohio and Indiana, northern Iowa, Nebraska, central Colorado and eastern Texas, from which it will be seen that once it was widely distributed. Itwasshotbecauseitwasdestructivetofruitandforits plumage,andmanyweretrappedalive,tobekeptincaptivity. Iknow that one colony, near the mouth of the Sebastian River, east coast of Florida, was exterminated in 1898 by a local hunter, and I regret to say that it was done in the hope of selling the living birds to a New York bird-dealer. By holding bags over the holes in which the birds were nesting, the entire colony, of about 16 birds, was caught.
Everywhere else than in Florida, the Carolina parrakeet has long been extinct. In1904aflockof13birdswasseennearLakeOkechobee;but in Florida many calamities can overtake a flock of birds in eight years. The birds in captivity are not breeding, and so far as perpetuation by them is concerned, they are only one remove from mounted museum specimens. Thisparrakeetistheonlymemberofitsorderthatranged into the United States during our own times, and with its disappearance the Order Psittaciformes totally disappears from our country.