Observations on the Hyacinthine Maccatv, 2 1 1 



the caruncula laciymdlis {caruncula^ diminutive from caro^ flesh, 

 and lacr-ymaliSi from lacryma, a tear), secretes a lubricating 

 liquor, and serves to direct the tears into the lacrymal canals. 

 The various changes effected on the rays of light, by the 

 humours, will be discussed in a future paper. 



B. S. 



(To be continued.^ 



Art. V. Observations on the Hyacinthine Maccatv. 

 By E. T. Bennett, Esq, F.L.S. 



Sir, 



On the subject of the Hyacinthine Maccaw, my account 

 of which in the Gardens and Menagerie of the Zoological 5o- 

 ciety delineated^ is criticised at p. 104. of your last Number, 

 allow me to offer a few observations. 1 freely admit my pre- 

 vious ignorance of the facts stated by Mr. Swainson. 1 knew 

 not, nor could I be expected to know, that he had sent to the 

 Linnean Society an account of its habits and locality, for that 

 account was not published by the Society ; and the same cir- 

 cumstance of non-publication also accounts for my not having 

 been aware that on his return to Europe he had brought with 

 him four specimens of the bird. With respect, as it should 

 seem, to one of these, it is certainly recorded among the 

 " Donations " at the end of the 14th volume of the Linnean 

 Transactions, that " a preserved specimen of the Psittacus 

 augustus of Shaw, from Brazil," was presented by Mr. Swain- 

 son to the Society. But as little scientific information is 

 usually to be derived from these lists of donations, I trust I 

 may be excused for not having consulted the one referred 

 to, the entry in which, quoted entire above, adds not in the 

 slightest degree to the knowledge we already possessed con- 

 cerning the bird in question. 



My object, however, on the present occasion, is not to 

 answer a charge which refutes itself, but rather to correct an 

 error into which M. Spix has fallen with respect to this mag- 

 nificent bird ; and, with this view, I propose giving a brief 

 history of the species up to the time when his work was pub- 

 lished. 



The bird was first described in 1790, by Dr. Latham, in 

 his Index Ornithologicus, under the name of Psittacus hya- 

 clnthinus, from a specimen in Parkinson's, otherwise the Le- 

 verian, Museum. In the Museum Leveridnum, under the date 

 of 1792, and afterwards in his Zoological Miscellany, Dr. 

 Shaw described and figured it as the Psittacus augustus, 



p 2 



