688 PARROT 



The systematic treatment of this very natural group has long 

 been a difficult subject, and almost the only approach to unanimity 

 among those who have made it their study, lies in the somewhat 

 general belief which has grown up within the last half of this 

 century that the Parrots should be regarded as forming a distinct 

 Order. A few systematisfcs, among whom Bonaparte was chief, 

 placed them at the top of the Class, conceiving that they were the 

 analogues of the Primates among Mammals. Prof. Huxley has 

 recognized the Psittacomorphai as forming one of the principal groups 

 of Caiinatie, and, by whatever name we call them, that much seems 

 to be evident. It will here, however, be unnecessary to discuss the 

 rank which the Parrots should hold, and it is quite enough of a 

 task to consider the most natui'al or — if we cannot hope at present 

 to reach that — at least the most expedient way of subdividing 

 them. It is a reproach to ornithologists that so little satisfactory 

 progress has been made in this direction, and the result is all 

 the more disheartening, seeing that there is no group of exotic 

 birds that affords equal opportunities for anatomical examination, 

 since almost every genus extant, and more than two-thirds of the 

 species, have within recent times been kept in confinement in 

 one or another of our zoological gardens, and at their death have 

 furnished subjects for dissection. Yet the laudable attempt of M. 

 Blanchard (Compt Ptend. xliii. 1097-1100 and xliv. 518-521) was not 

 successful, and it cannot be affirmed that the latest arrangement of 

 the Psittaci is really much more natural than that planned by 

 Buffon in 1779.^ He was of course unaware of the existence of some 

 of the most remarkable forms of the group, in particular of Stringops 

 and Nestar ; but he began by making two great divisions of those that 

 he did know, separating the Parrots of the Old World from the 

 Parrots of the New, and subdividing each of these divisions into 

 various sections somewhat in accordance with the names they had 

 received in popular language — a .practice he followed on many other 

 occasions, for he seems to have held a belief that there is more 

 truth in the discrimination of the unlearned than the scientific are 

 apt to allow. The end was that he produced a plan which is com- 

 paratively simple and certainly practical, while as just stated it can- 

 not be confidently declared to be unnatural. However, not to go very 



but all trace of it has since been lost, and the only two specimens that exist in 

 Museums are at Paris and Vienna respectively — the latter having been obtained 

 on the dispersal of the Leverian Museum in 1806, when it formed lot 5828 in the 

 sale catalogue, and was there said to be from America ! {Cf. Von Pelzeln, Ibis, 

 1873, p. 32 ; A. Milne-Edwards, Ann. Sc. Nat. ser. 5, vi. pi. ii. fig. 4, pi. iii. fig. 

 8 ; the same and Oustalet in the centenary volume of the Museum of Natural 

 History at Paris, pp. 7-21, pi, i. ; aud W. A. Forbes, Ibis, 1879, pp. 303-307.) 



^ This is virtually admitted by Count T. Salvadori {torn. cit. lutrod. p. viii.), 

 the latest reviser of the Order. 



