44 Mr. Vigors's Sketches in Ornithology/, 



The ancient writers are unanimous in informing us that the 

 Parrots known to their times came exclusively from India.* 

 In that country these birds were ever held in the highest honour. 

 We are informed by jElian + that they were the favourite inmates 

 of the palaces of the princes ; and were looked up to as objects of 

 sacred reverence by the religious feelings of the people. From 

 thence they were introduced into Europe at the time of the Mace- 

 dmiian conquest ; and the specifick name of Alexandria applied 

 by modern science to the type of the group, in honour of the first 

 European discoverer of it, serves to perpetuate the name of a 

 warriour, who is said to have valued the conquests that extended 

 the boundaries of his etopire, chiefly as they served to extend the 

 boundaries of science. It was not until the times of Nero that 

 -the Parrots of Africa became known to the Romans. J Some of 



• Aristotle calls the Psittacus '' to lilixov o^veov." Hist. Anim. VIII. 146. 

 and Arrian in his Indian History makes it a native of the East, '' yiyfirott 

 «» rn h^uv y>j." Hist. Ind. cap. XV. Pausanias says it exclusively belongs 

 to that country, ** TTx^x ^s Iv^uv fjt,ovm a-KKx rt )co[xt^srxt xxt o^vi^ss ot 

 ^trruitoi,''^ Lib. II. 'cap. 28, p. 175. ed. Kuhnii. Solinus assigns it the same 

 exclusive locality : — " Sola India mittit Psittacum avem." Polyhist. c. 53. 

 p. 120, Ed. Aid. 1518. Ovid and Statius also unite in giving this bird an 

 Eastern origin. 



" Psittacus, Eois imitatrix ales ab Indis." 



Amor. II. 6. 



*' Psittacus, ille plagae viridis regnator Eoae." 



Sylv. Lib. II. 

 I^ee also ^lian. De Nat. Animal. XVI. 2. and XVI. 15. 



+ De Nat. Anim. XIII. 18. See also Strabo. Geogiaph. Lib. XV. p. 718. 

 Ed. Casaub. 1620. 



if See Pliny. Nat. Hist. Lib. VI. c. 29. Diodorus Siculus says that Parrots 

 were found in Syria. "*Ai ^c rus 'Zv^txs la-^xrixi -^irrxicii xxi 'jro^(pv^imxs 

 XXI y^iKixyqioxs, xxt aXKcuv ^uuv totxs (pvarsts rois ^^u[Axa-i xxi voixiKxs 

 ffvyx^ta-us." Biblioth. Hist. Lib. II. c. 53. p. 165. Ed. Wesselingii. It is not 

 however likely that these birds were natives of a country, so far north of 

 their usual habitation, and so near to Europe as to render it improbable that 

 they should not hare been known earlier than the Macedonian conquest. It is 

 more probable that the birds alluded to by Diodorus were merely articles of 



