CLUTCH SIZE, LAYING DATE, AND INCUBATION PERIOD IN THE CAROLINA PARAKEET

BY DANIEL MCKINLEY

Literature on egg-layingand incubation in the Carolina Parakeet (Conuropsis?arolinensis) is a mosaicof hearsay,second-guessing, and in- ference. Not only are the ornithologicalwaters on this subjectfull of shoalsbut also their undercurrentsmay take the unwary by surprise. Becausethe speciesis extinct,there is no possiblerecourse to experience with the themselves. For in general,the major guidesare writers in the cage- trade. Anecdotal summaries are found in Bronson (1953) and Tavistock (1954). Aviculturalinformation haslately been authoritativelyreviewed by Smith (1972) and Rutgersand Norris (1972). A good ornithological evaluation of records is found in Forshaw's recent works (1969, 1973). Strictly oologicalmatters are summarizedby Sch6nwetter(1963-1964) and Harrison and Holyoak (1970). A reviewof somephysical aspects of Carolina Parakeeteggs has been written by McKinley (1977).

CLUTCH SIZE Information on clutchsize in the Carolina Parakeetis disappointingly meager.Alexander Wilson (1811) wasunable to learn with any precision how many eggs were laid, although Bonnaterre and Vieillot, being prophetsfrom a foreign land, wrote with certainty that "the clutch is two eggs"(1823: 1402). Audubon noted that, althoughfemales laid their eggsmany together, individual birds probably laid only twoeggs (1831: 139). Both attributionswere guesses. W. B. Seward,not a trained ornithologist,recalled five as the number of youngbrought him from a felled tree in pioneer Indiana (Butler, 1892: 53). J. M. McCrary, a collectorwith four spring seasoh'sexperi- ence in , wrote (1891) that the clutch was two--but he was prob- ablyreporting hearsay, as no doubtwas the more informedornithologist C. J. Maynard (1890: 68) who suggestedthe same number. Hearsayis catching,of course,and that may be why so many dubious parakeet eggscome in "sets"of two or three eggs.David Weeks'sclutch of eggsfrom ,suspected by Bendire (1895: 6) not to be gen- uine, containstwo. Another Louisianahaul of doubtful authenticity, supposedto havebeen found by JamesFairie in 1859, alsohas two eggs in it. So doesthe originallyunlabeled set from Georgiafound by Dr. S. W. Wilson (thoughtby Ridgwayand Bendire to be authentic)(Bailey, 1883). Two dubioussets of eggscollected by C. E. Doe in Florida in 1927 are in clutchesof two and three (McKinley, 1977). The Staatliches Museum fur Tierkunde Forschungsstelleat Dresden has three acces- sionsof two, two, and one egg each, as if thesewere considered"sets" of eggs.All are "from the zoo"and lack other data; it is entirelypossible that these are all that the keepers were able to save or thought worth

223 224] D. McKinley Bird-Banding Summer 1978

saving.Two "sets"of quite unknown provenanceare two each (Univer- sity of Nebraska Museum; Newark Museum); but not only are these questionablyfrom CarolinaParakeets in the first place,even if genuine, they may have been made up into what the trade considereda "set" of eggs. (These and other undocumented references to eggs are taken from my unpublishedsurvey of specimensof parakeetskins, skeletons, and eggs.) OriginallyKarl Russ(1879) rather indefinitelybelieved that Carolina Parakeetsin captivitylaid two eggsbut later experiencetaught him to expect from three to five, a number that he later urged upon Bendire (1895: 6). Four eggswere laid in the Frankfurt Zoo in 1860 and two in the Hannover Zoo in 1868 by a pair of parakeetsin both cases(we are unsureof totalclutches in eithercase). Neunzig recorded that Dr. Russ's single pair of parakeets"hatched out three young and later on five more"(Prestwich, 1951: 79). Apparentlythere were no addledeggs, for we are told that the clutchesof eggswere three and five. The clutchof three appearedjust prior to 1870; the date of the clutch of five is un- known.Russ's birds alsolaid four eggsin 1878 (Finsch,1867: 67, 486; Russ, 1879: 231,234). Dr. Nowotny of Vienna, an amateur bird-keeper, had a pair of Car- olina Parakeetswhose female laid five eggsin late June 1879 and an additionaltwo eggsby 6 July. These seveneggs, certainly one clutch, were destroyed,the first five by the parent birds.A secondset was begun on 19 July and completedwith three eggsshortly thereafter, with the par- ents sittingassiduously (Russ, 1879; 838-840; Bartsch,1898). A bird held in captivityby Robert Ridgwayapparently laid one egg in each of the years 1877, 1878, and 1883 (at least, that is the number of eggs that he depositedin the U.S. National Museum). One might concludethat the clutchwas one in thesecases but nothingis known aboutpossible lost eggs, and it seemsthat Ridgwaywas not an altogether exemplaryaviculturist. Furthermore, a possiblyparallel case urges cau- tion. Beebereported that a singleegg (one would immediatelyassume the completeclutch) was successfully hatched at the PhiladelphiaZoo in 1885 (1909: 583). But there are four additional eggsfrom the Phila- delphia Zoo dated 1885 in the Bayard Cutting Arboretum collection, making a total of five. Gedney gave the clutch as four to six (1876: 64), which, although probablya guess,was better than mostreports we have. That Ridgwayhad not soldadditional eggs in the 1880'sis perhaps indicatedby his statementto Childs in 1901 (Amadon, 1966) that "not a singleprivate collectionin the world containsone." Additionaleggs may,of course,have been broken in thoseyears, considering the careless habitsof parakeetsin captivityand the admittedlyhaphazard housing provided the birds. (However, Ridgwaydid part with another egg--an 1897 egg now at the Museumof ComparativeZoology, Harvard Uni- versity-but that transactionmay have occurredafter his dealingswith Childs.)Altogether, clutch size among the earlier Ridgwaybirds is un- Vol.49, No. 3 CarolinaParakeet Reproduction [225 decipherablefrom the bits of evidencethat have so far been found. More completeinformation exists on his last laying bird. A female that Ridgwaybrought back from Florida in 1896 laid eight eggsin the summer of 1900. Apparentlyshe laid only two eggsin 1901 and these were sold to John Lewis Childs (1905). As one of the speci- menswas damaged, Childs haggledabout the price and Ridgwaypirated one egg the following summer (to make up the fabled two eggsto a "set,"I suppose)(Amadon, 1966). The female went on to lay a total of six eggsin the summerof 1902 and wasdead by nfid-November.Even thoughthe five remainingeggs hatched, little cameof the venture (But- ler, 1931; Bartsch, 1952), and even less resulted t¾om a clutch of four eggsin the aviary of Captain Nicholl in England about the same time (Anon., 1903-1904). In summary,enough has been discoveredto showthat clutch size in the CarolinaParakeet was perhaps rarely as smallas two. The effectsof captivityupon the speciesand its egg-layinghabits cannot be estimated. Thus, in the total absence of information drawn from the field, little can be definitive,even in a speculativeway. It may be worth examining the record,imperfect as it is, in other Americanspecies of smallparrots. Prestwich(1949: 16) givesclutches of speciesof the genusAratinga (to which the Carolina Parakeetis assumedby many taxonomiststo be closelyrelated) in captivityas: 2 (six clutches),3 (eight clutches)and 4 (two clutches).One female A. auricapillus(=A. solstitialis)laid three clutchesof 2, 2, and 3 in one year. The tendencyamong Aratingas to lay two or three eggsis further shownby the few recordsfrom the wild: A. euops,two to five (Bond, 1958: 5); A. pertinaxin the West Indies, two (Nichols, 1943: 34); A. pertinaxin Venezuela, number of clutchesnot stated,three to fbur eggs(Friedmann and Smith, 1950: 472); A. cani- cularis,one to three in the wild, three to five in captivity(Dickey and van Rossera,1938: 205; Hardy, 1963: 198); A. (Thectocercus)acuticau- datus,three: and A. (Eupsittula)aurea, two or three (Orfila, 1936: 222, 224). All these species,of course,are more tropical in their distribution than Co,uropsisand the generally small clutch sizesmay support an ecological"rule" that birds nestingin higher latitudestend to have larger clutches.However, it is well to remember that in the tiny short-tailed tropicalAmerican parrotsof the genusForpus the clutchesreported by Prestwich(1949) are: 4 (fi)ur sets)and 5 (tbur sets);with apparently one set of 6 known. Friedmann and Smith (1950: 473.), however,fi)und only two nestlingsin a clutch of F. passerbinsin the wild. Clutchesof up to eight are recorded tbr Brologerisjugularis in the wild in (Wet- more, 1968' 87). • • ß Anothercomplicating factor is that of determinatenessin egg-laying: that is, whetherthe numberof eggsin a clutchis:(tefinite or if a female continuesto lay if eggsare lostor remove(1(which thus keeps•he clutch "incomplete"insofar as the bird is concerned).Smith (1972:161) reports parrots, with minor exceptions,as determinatelayers. Brockway (1968) 226] o. McKinley Bird-Banding Summer 1978 showedthat whenbudgerigars are allowedto retain evenone egg,they lay onlythe "usual"number of eggs,but that, whenall eggsare promptly removed from the nest, at least up to 20 eggsmay readily be laid. In captivity,especially when birds lay from the roostingperch or when no proper nest-holecavity is available,circumstances approaching the sec- ond conditionmentioned by Brockwaytend to prevail.

LAYING DATES Of five decidedlyuncertain sets of wild-takeneggs alleged to belong to the CarolinaParakeet (McKinley, 1977), all havebeen assignedto the spring of the year: , 26 April; Louisiana,March; Pendry'sFlor- ida set, 2 April; and two Doe setstaken in Florida, 30 April. The only two datesmentioned by Bent (1940:11) and 2 and 26 April; both were said by Bent to apply to Florida although one (the S.W. Wilson set) obviouslyrefers to Georgia. In view of severalwell-known records to the contraryof eggslaid in captivity,these two datesseem poorly chosen. I suspectthey are both wrong. The Pendry eggs (Childs, 1906) have disappearedand were probablyentirely spurious. The Wilsongroup is questionableat best,and the datemay be unreliablein anycase, because evenif not a faked collection,the eggsmay havebeen taken from a nest of the previous season. Dates of egg-layingfor the westernsubspecies (note the March date claimed above for Louisiana)inferred in the literature are extremely circumstantial.Furnas (1902) told of a "nesting"on an island in the Missouri River near Brownville, Nebraska, in the 1850's. The account seemsto indicate a "spring"breeding period but it is vague, and too much substanceought not to be read into it; (for example, it was re- corded nearly 50 yearsafter the event). Goss(1891: 316) related that "in the spring of 1858, a small flock reared their young" near Neosho Falls,Kansas (1891:316). Gossnever sawtheir eggs;his statementhard- ly claimsthat he saw the young. The report is probablyhearsay only and, anyway, it is certainly not a precise seasonaldate. One of Rollin Baker'sinformants (1956: 357) in easternTexas "thoughtthat they were mostabundant at the time when corn began to ripen but alsothought that the birds nestedin Tyler County."(Obviously, Baker thoughtthat the nesting season--after which the season'sgreatest numbers would occur--would not be when corn ripened, that is in late summer; if the report is at all valid, it may well be founded upon a nestingof the parakeet at or after midsummer.) It is difficult to untangleallusions to nestingby the parakeetin early accounts.John Lawson (1967: 146-147) found "Parrakeetos"in coastal North Carolinain the early 1700'sto be presentsporadically except winter. However,despite his being the sourceof much homelylore on the species,he did not guessat an egg-layingdate. Mark Catesby(1731: 11) made nothingof their time of nesting.That he thoughtthey came farthestnorth in autumn--in pursuitof apples,as he indicated--isper- haps suggestive.Buffon, kingpin of naturalistsof the Age of Reason, Vol.49, No. 3 CarolinaParakeet Reproduction [227

interpretedGatesby to saythat althougha few breed in Carolina,"most of them retire southwardsin the loveseason, and appearagain during the harvest."Buffon thus assumedthat parakeetsbred to the south in theproper spring season and camenorth later in the year to wreak havoc upon orchards rather than to breed. Guided by a sounddistrust of what he could not see,Alexander Wil- son may have come near the truth, at an early day, when he wrote: "That theycommence incubation late in summer,or veryearly in spring, I think highly probable,from the numerous dissectionsI made in the monthsof March, April, May and June ..." (1811: 94). By this Wilson obviouslymeant that he had detectedno indicationof egg-layingduring thosemonths. ("Very early in the spring"evidently meant before those months.)The sizeof his samplecannot be known with much precision but he certainlyshot a greatmany parrots on his trip throughthe Ohio and lower Mississippivalleys in spring 1810. He consideredhis point further provedby "the great varietywhich I found in the colorof the plumageof the headand neck,of both sexes,during the two former of these months .... " With a Buffoniandislike of a holeleft unplastered,Audubon matched his recklessstatement to "Dear Reader"that cockleburswere perennials (speciesof Xanthiumare annual plants)with the distinctinference that the parakeet'snesting season was the more or lessusual one. This is shownby hisstatement (1831: 139) that the youngretain an entirelygreen plumage during the first season,until "towards autumn a frontlet of carmine appears."Since he was incorrect about these important details of molt and color,it is certainlyrisky to take the restof hiscommentary seriously. Peoplecontinued to look for parakeetnests during the spring,how- ever, as is proved by the promotionalannouncements of Fred Ober in 1874 that he confidentlyexpected to haveeggs next season,to go with the never further documented "authentic information" on nests that he had garneredthat year. He had startedfor the Okeechobeeregion on 1 February and was back in the lap of civilizationby 18 March. It is worth noting that Maynard, who had hunted assiduouslyin winter and springfor informationon the parakeetin prolongedfield tripsin Flor- ida, wasunsuccessful in finding nestsor young(1881: 251). He finally beganto credit informants'claims that the birds nestedin June; one party sentout by him found, in mid-June"nothing but young"--which, •n monumentalthick-headedness, they bothered neither to count nor to preserve.August Koch reported from western Florida, where he had collectedduring severalspring seasons,that professionalbird-catchers cameto the Apalachicolaregion "alwaysin July, when the youngbirds were collectedin flocks. . ."; or so he wastold by residents(1891). This may be seento coincidefairly well with Maynard'sconclusions. It is true that W. E. D. Scott(1889: 249) thoughtthat the ovariesof femaleshe collectedat Linden aboutmid-February "seemed to indicate that the breedingseason would begin not later than the last of April." 228] D. McKinley Bird-Banding Summer 1978

The absenceof evidencemakes this a meaninglessstatement. More im- portantly, contrastit with F. M. Chapman'sfindings. In mid-March 1889, Chapman secured15 specimenson the SebastianRiver. The un- developedcondition of sexualorgans in the individualsshot and the pattern of molt in one that wascaptured alive led him "to supposethat they nestedlate in the summer" (1890). The evidenceon egg-layingin captivitytends to confirm an early to late summerperiod of laying in the CarolinaParakeet. The singleex- ceptionis the circumstantialstatement by the generallyunreliable Ged- hey (1876: 64) that "their breeding seasonvaries considerably in this country[England], some commencing as early asFebruary, whilst others defer mattersuntil September";in the former case,he said,two or three clutchesmight be laid, althoughone ought not to expectgood luck with late broods. Recordsin captivityare, as might be expected,less than perfect. The earliestknown instanceof a CarolinaParakeet depositing eggs in cap- tivity is 1860, when a pair in the ZoologicalGarden of Frankfurt laid a clutchof four eggsin July (Finsch,1867: 486; Russ, 1879: 234). Some time previousto 1871, Karl Russ,a German bird-fancier of note, had one pair (of a total of three pairs) of parakeetsthat raised two broods "in the summer months"(1879: 231), but few details of their history survive. Russ also related (p. 234) that Dr. W. Niemeyer (=Niemeier) had a bird of this speicesthat laid two eggsin a nestboxin June 1868. Three early eggs(U.S. Natl. Mus.) laid by captivebirds are dated 19 July 1878, August 1877, and September1883 (daysnot known for the latter two). The number of females involved in this collection is not known.There is a female specimenin the U.S. National Museumlabeled a "cagedspecimen, said to have beenbrought from . Laid 3 eggs in captivity"(R. Zusi, pers. comm.);but, even if all this were true--and there is no supportingevidence--she certainly did not lay the egg of 1883 becauseher death was February 1879: her three eggsmay have been a singleclutch. At leasttwo daysprevious to 29 June 1879, the female parakeetbe- longingto Dr. Nowotnyof Vienna (Bartsch,1898) had begunto lay. On that date, he found two eggsin the bottom of the cage.Another egg is saidto haveappeared later the sameday. (I am suspiciousof the alleged rate of laying, for Nowotnyclaimed that by the time he transferredthe latter egg into the box with the original two, there were fourspossibly, I suppose,because the bird had already laid one in the nestboxwhere he was unaware of its presence.)A fifth egg was laid on 30 June. By 1 July, the entire batch had been destroyedby the parent (or parents), eventhough a sixthand seventhegg appeared"between the secondand sixth of July." Three eggsonly made up a later clutch that was laid beginning19 July. These datesmore or lessagree with the hatchingon 9 Septemberof the singleegg incubated at the PhiladelphiaZoo (Beebe, 1909). Vol.49, No. 3 CarolinaParakeet Reproduction [229

One of Ridgway'sbirds produced an egg on 29 July (now at Museum of ComparativeZoology). Whether there were others laid that summer is not known; perhaps they broke in falling from the perch. Further- more, evidentlythe samefemale laid eight eggsin July to August 1900, providing the U.S. National Museumwith as many eggsas its curators cared to have. Ridgwaythen proceededto sell three eggsto John Lewis Childs (Amadon, 1966), their dates of laying being 5 and 12 July 1901 and 29 July 1902. Ridgwayseemed to indicatethat his female laid only two eggsin 1901; I think it possiblethat this was merely the number of eggs that he managed to salvage.Despite the eggs' rarity, Childs quibbled at the damagedone one as it fell from the roostingperch to the floor of the cage.Ridgway promised him a replacementif his parakeetlaid any more eggsin 1902, a rather indefinite pledge he thought, becausethe bird was then at least six years old, and he feared that she was becoming barren presumablybecause of the smallclutch laid in 1901. (He had, of course, no good reason for assumingthem to be short-livedbirds, the contrarybeing the case[McKinley, unpubl. data].) Barrennesshardly accountedfor the two-egg clutch, becausethe Ridgwaybird laid her lasteggs, a totalof six,in 1902,the firstone being taken to alleviatethe grumblesof Childs.The remainingfive hatched, as I shall recount elsewhere. This review of the times when eggsare known to have been laid (all of them in captivity)makes it apparentthat CarolinaParakeet eggs were not laid in spring at all and seldombefore 1 July. From evaluationof the time of molt in young birds, preliminary evidenceshows that the green freathers of the head were replaced by yellow ones in Florida specimensfrom September(rarely) to perhapsJune (with the bulk in January-February); a very small sample of western specimenssuggests a similar schedule.The exact age at which this molt occurredis poorly known; it may have been as early as age six to 10 weeks.Whether cap- tivity had altered the laying cycle cannot be determined. From the skimpy evidence at hand, at any rate, it seemsclear that most of the people looking in Florida for nestsof the Carolina Parakeetwere search- ing at the wrong time of year. When the collectorswere not simplyfrost- weary Northernersout for a tropicallark in midwinter to early spring, they were outlanderswho assumedthat parrots would sensiblynest at the sametime robinslaid their eggsin the North. Oddly enough,received opinion--already conceived in an ignorance that could,at leastat first, havebeen calledhonorable-•came to accept a late spring laying season,as if the matter had somehowreally been investigatedand settled.Despite his clear feeling to the contraryin 1890, Chapmanwrote in his 1912 books(both "Color Key" and a so-called revisededition of the "Handbook")that the breedingseason was prob- ablyJune. This did not changein the final (and really revised)edition of the "Handbook" (1932: 330). 230] D. McKinley Bird-Banding Summer 1978

INCUBATION PERIOD The storyof the lengthof incubationin the CarolinaParakeet is soon told. For what it is worth, the very diverseparrot familyis saidby Jean Dorstto havean incubationperiod "averagingthree weeks"(Thomson, 1964: 600-602). Just what basisthis has in fact is not clear to me, for Ren6 Verheyen gives the minimum incubation period, even for the smallestspecies, as 17 to 21 days(1956: 10), figurescomparable to those of Smith (1972: 161-162). Apparently, the first publishedaccount of incubationperiod for the Carolina Parakeet--from captivebirds, if valid at all--was contributed by Gedney (1876: 64): It "extendsover a period of fourteen or sixteen days."This surelymust have been an exampleof what Arthur A. Prest- wich has characterizedin Gedneyas "his rather elasticimagination." PossiblyGedney was of the sameopinion as T. G. Gentry;of the latter Nice (1954: 176) wrote: "as he considered that incubation was a most wearisometask for both parent and chick,he compassionatelymade it short."The only scrapof evidencethat Gedneymay havebeen correct is a statementby Beebe,reported at secondhand (1909: 583): "The CarolinaParrakeet was bred in the PhiladelphiaZoological Garden on September9th, 1885, when one bird was hatchedfrom an egg which had been placed under a Turtle Dove. The period of incubationwas fourteen days."I do not know who told Beebethe incubationperiod; it is not mentionedin recordssurviving at the PhiladelphiaZoo (letter from John A. Griswold).Oddly, Beebe,although alleging to list nesting successesin the United States,did not mention Ridgway'slimited achievements. As for Robert Ridgway,whether in regard to failure to record full scientificinformation or to lackof successin preservinga dyingspecies, it is too easyto blamehim. There is indeeda maddeningbit of evidence that Ridgway had somewherekept preciseinformation on incubation periodsof hishatchlings. Part is secure:the first eggof the clutch(trans- mitted to Childs)was laid 29 July 1902.If one assumesthat the next five eggswere laid at two-dayintervals, the last would have been deposited on 8 August.Perhaps one may safely guessthat incubationbegan im- mediatelyupon laying of the first one that the parentswere allowedto retain: Ridgwaynoted that the birdsemphatically showed that they"had other uses"for the eggsand he let them keep them. In the U.S. National Museumthere are two skinsof birds that hatchedfrom that clutch,only to die mysteriouslythe followingJune. These specimensbear labels noting that they hatchedon 26 August and 1 September.If incubation beganwith the secondegg (the first left to the parents),/f the last egg waslaid on 8 Augustand/f thisegg hatchedon 1 September,a minimum incubationperiod of 24 daysis suggested.(Could Beebe's14 dayshave resultedfrom a jumbling of numeralsof 24 to 147).But, of course,we do not really know when the clutchwas finished, when the first and last chickhatched or the order of hatchingof the eggs. It is all very sad. Vol.49, No. 3 CarolinaParakeet Reproduction [231

Despiteseveral reports of successfulhatchings of the parakeetin Eu- rope (see, particularly,Prestwich, 1966), from the entire number apparentlyonly one aviarykeeper published records of the important matter of incubationperiod. The singleexception is the otherwiseun- known Dr. Nowotnyof Vienna. His pair of parakeetslaid an egg on 19 July 1879, and afterwardsa secondand third. It seemsprobable from Nowotny'saccount that incubationbegan with the first egg. He heard "a youngone scream"on 9 Augustand a secondone wascalling on 10 August.He did not find out whenthe third hatched.This indicatesan incubationperiod of 21 days,assuming that we knowwhen the first egg wasreally laid and assumingthat the first laid wasthe first hatched. This is probablythe sourcefor publishedstatements that the incubation periodfor theparakeet was "21 days" and "l 9-20 days"(Bergtold, 1917: 93; Reilly, 1968: 233). A pairof CarolinaParakeets kept by an Englishbird fancierincubated closelyfor three weekson eggsthat provedto be addled(Anon., 1903- 1904). That birds,however, will incubatelong pastthe regular time if eggsdo not hatchis well known--twicethe usualperiod is not uncom- mon. Information on incubationperiod in all American parrots is scanty. In captiveAratinga canicularis the period is around 26 days;this is a specieswhose eggs are substantiallysmaller than thoseof Conuropsis (Hardy, 1963: 191; Sch6nwetter,1964: 517). One-eggclutches of the Thick-billedParrot (Rhynchopsittapachyrhyncha) in captivity hatched in 28 days(Lint, 1966; Dyson, 1969), the eggsof this speciesbeing some- what larger than thoseof the Carolina Parakeet(Sch6nwetter 1964: 518).

SUMMARY Meagerinformation from eggslaid in captivityindicates clutch sizes of four to six as common in Carolina Parakeets. Information from the wild is unreliable.Uncritical general opinion has been that sucheggs werelaid in the spring.Eggs laid in captivity,when dates can be proved, have been depositedfrom very late June well into August;this seems alsoto coincidewith the timing of the relativelybrief period in autumn to early winter when birds with immatureplumages were found. Al- thoughthe incubationperiod in thisspecies was reportedly 14 days,it wasprobably at least21 daysor thereabouts.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This review is part of a historyof the Carolina Parakeetbegun in 1955. During the courseof my work, I have becomeindebted to too manypeople to listindividually, but I remaingrateful to all whohelped me. I am alsothankful for short periodsof financialsupport from the Frank M. Chapman Memorial Fund (American Museumof Natural History)and twosummer fellowships from the ResearchFoundation of the State Universityof . 2 3 2] D. McKinley Bird-Banding Summer 1978

LITERATURE CITED

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