=The parrots (Psittaci).=--The parrots, of which only one species is native in the United States, constitute an interesting order of birds, the Psittaci. They are abundant in tropical America. They have a very thick strongly hooked bill, with a thick and fleshy tongue. The feet have two toes pointing forward and two backward. The plumage is usually brightly and gaudily colored. The natural voice is harsh and discordant, but many of the species can imitate with surprising cleverness the speech of man. Parrots are long-lived and usually docile, and are much kept as pets. The single native species, the Carolina paroquet (_Conurus carolinensis_), is about a foot in length, is green, with yellow head and neck and orange-red face. Its range once extended from the Gulf of Mexico north to the Great Lakes, but it has been nearly exterminated in all the States but Florida. =The cuckoos and kingfishers (Coccyges).=--The cuckoos and kingfishers are regarded as constituting an order, Coccyges, a small group whose members are without any definite bond of union. Only ten species of North American birds belong to this order. The yellow-billed and black-billed cuckoos (_Coccyzus_) or "rain-crows" are long-tailed, slender, lustrous drab birds, which lay their eggs in the nests of others. They are notable for their peculiar rolling call. On the plains and hills of California and the southwest lives the road-runner or chaparral cock (_Geococcyx californianus_), a strange bird belonging to the cuckoo family. It is nearly two feet long, of which length the tail makes half. These birds run so rapidly that a horse is little more than able to keep up with them. They feed on fruits, various reptiles, insects, etc. The one common kingfisher of this country, the belted kingfisher (_Ceryle alcyon_), a thick-set, heavy-billed, ashy blue-and-white bird, is familiar along streams. As it flies swiftly along it gives its rattling cry. It nests in deep holes in the stream-banks, and lays six or eight crystal-white spheroidal eggs. =The woodpeckers (Pici).=--The familiar woodpeckers and sap-suckers compose a well-defined order, Pici, which is represented in North America by twenty-five species. The bill of the woodpecker is stout and strong, usually straight, fitted for driving or boring into wood; the tongue is long, sharp-pointed, and barbed, fitted for spearing insects. The feet have two toes turned forward and two backward; the tail-feathers are stiff and sharp-pointed and help support the bird as it clings to the vertical side of a tree-trunk or branch (fig. 139). The food of most woodpeckers consists chiefly of insects, usually wood-boring larvæ (grubs). These birds do much good by destroying many noxious insect pests of trees. A few species, the true sap-suckers, probably feed on the sap of trees. Their nests are made in holes in trees, and the eggs are pure white and rounded. The harsh and shrill cries of the woodpeckers are familiar to all.