46 Mi\ Vigors's Sketches in Ornithology/, 



with a slight variation as to colour. '' Sola India mittit Psittacum 

 avem, colore viridi, torque pimkeo."^ Apuleius again alludes to 

 the same characters, but more immediately and forcibly distin- 

 guishes the varying tints of the collar round the neck, '' Color 

 Psittaco viridisy et intimis plumulis et extimis palmulis, nisi quod 

 sola cervice distinguitur. Enimvero cervicula ejus circulo mineo 

 velut flwrea torqui^^ivi fulgoris circumactu cingitur et coronatur."f 

 Oppian gives the bird an epithet % which precisely represents the 

 colour of the modern group to which I allude ; 



"iirrxKos ccvTE^ T^vms ra, svv otKXinXoist nyioiroi^ 

 Aist yxp Tfo^Biisi Xy^o< nOESIXPOON opviv. 



De Venat. Lib. II. v. 488. 



While Ovid, in like manner, particularizes both the emerald 

 plumage and the deep red bill. 



Tu poteras fragiles plumis hebetare smaragdos, 



I croco. 

 Amor. Lib. II. El. VI. 



Tincta gerens rubro Punica rostra croco. 



It generally, indeed as I apprehend, invariably happens, that 

 when groups are separated from all others of the same family by 

 characters of colouring thus decisively marking, and are at the same 

 time confined within certain geographical limits to the exclusion 

 of all the other conterminous groups of the same family, such 

 groups are set apart also by generick characters equally distin- 

 guishing. This at least is the case in the assemblance of birds now 

 before us, which I shall proceed to characterize under the gene- 

 rick name of 



PALiEORNIS. 



Rostrum subcrassum ; raandibula superiore dilatata culmine 

 rotundo, inferiore lata, brevi, emarginata. 



AlcB mediocres ; remigibus tribus extimis fere aequalibus, lon- 



* Polyhist. c. 23. + Florid. Lib. II. 



% The epithet oi.v^o(pvu applied to the wing of this bird, in the passage lately 

 quoted from the " Anthologia," (p. 42. Note), seems to refer to the same co- 

 lour, or may perhaps allude to the rose-like spot upon the wing. 



