File:The birds of America - from drawings made in the United States and their territories (1840) (14568834757).jpg

Identifier: birdsofamericafr04audu (find matches)
Title: The birds of America : from drawings made in the United States and their territories
Year: 1840 (1840s)
Authors: Audubon, John James, 1785-1851 Bowen, John T., ca. 1801-1856?, lithographer
Subjects: Birds Birds
Publisher: New York : Published by J.J. Audubon Philadelphia : J.B. Chevalier
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Institution Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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y as many other plants that had long beenconsidered of no importance. Well, reader, you have before you one of these plants, on the seeds ofwhich the Parrot feeds. It alights upon it, plucks the bur from the stemwith its bill, takes it from the latter with one foot, in which it turns it overuntil the joint is properly placed to meet the attacks of the bill, when itbursts it open, takes out the fruit, and allows the shell to drop. In thismanner, a flock of these birds, having discovered a field ever so well filledwith these plants, will eat or pluck off all their seeds, returning to the placeday after day until hardly any are left. The plant might thus be extirpated,but it so happens that it is reproduced from the ground, being perennial, andour farmers have too much to do in securing their crops, to attend to thepulling up the cockle-burs by the roots, the only effectual way of getting ridof them. The Parrot does not satisfy himself with cockle-burs, but eats or destroys N?56 P12 7 8.
Text Appearing After Image:
£st&/ze&& THE CAROLINA PARROT. 307 almost every kind of fruit indiscriminately, and on this account is always anunwelcome visiter to the planter, the farmer, or the gardener. The stacksof grain put up in the field are resorted to by flocks of these birds, whichfrequentty cover them so entirely, that they present to the eye the sameeffect as if a brilliantly coloured carpet had been thrown over them. Theycling around the whole stack, pull out the straws, and destroy twice as muchof the grain as would suffice to satisfy their hunger. They assail the pearand apple-trees, when the fruit is yet very small and far from being ripe,and this merely for the sake of the seeds. As on the stalks of corn, theyalight on the apple-trees of our orchards, or the pear-trees in the gardens, ingreat numbers; and, as if through mere mischief, pluck off the fruits, openthem up to the core, and, disappointed at the sight of the seeds, which areyet soft and of a milky consistence, drop the apple

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