This Parrot, called in La Plata the Bank- or Burrowing-Parrot, from its nesting-habits, is the only member of its order found so far south as Patagonia. In habits it differs somewhat from most of its congeners, and it may be regarded, I think, as one of those species which are dying out--possibly owing to the altered conditions resulting from the settlement of the country by Europeans. It was formerly abundant on the southern pampas of La Plata, and being partially migratory its flocks ranged in winter to Buenos Ayres, and even as far north as the Paraná river. When, as a child, I lived near the capital city (Buenos Ayres), I remember that I always looked forward with the greatest delight to the appearance of these noisy dark-green winter visitors. Now they are rarely seen within a hundred miles of Buenos Ayres; and I have been informed by old gauchos that half a century before my time they invariably appeared in immense flocks in winter, and have since gradually diminished in numbers, until now in that district the Bank-Parrot is almost a thing of the past. Two or three hundred miles south of Buenos Ayres city they are still to be met with in rather large flocks, and have a few ancient breeding-places, to which they cling very tenaciously. Where there are trees or bushes on their feeding-ground they perch on them; they also gather the berries of the _Empetrum rubrum_ and other fruits from the bushes; but they feed principally on the ground, and, while the flock feeds, one bird is invariably perched on a stalk or other elevation to act as sentinel. They are partial to the seeds of the giant thistle (_Carduus mariana_), and the wild pumpkin, and to get at the latter they bite the hard dry shell into pieces with their powerful beaks. When a horseman appears in the distance they rise in a compact flock, with loud harsh screams, and hover above him, within a very few yards of his head, their combined dissonant voices producing an uproar which is only equalled in that pandemonium of noises, the Parrot-house in the Zoological Gardens of London. They are extremely social, so much so that their flocks do not break up in the breeding-season; and their burrows, which they excavate in a perpendicular cliff or high bank, are placed close together; so that when the gauchos take the young birds--esteemed a great delicacy--the person who ventures down by means of a rope attached to his waist is able to rifle a whole colony. The burrow is three to five feet deep, and four white eggs are deposited on a slight nest at the extremity. I have only tasted the old birds, and found their flesh very bitter, scarcely palatable. The natives say that this species cannot be taught to speak; and it is certain that the few individuals I have seen tame were unable to articulate.