Notes on tlie Parrots, 401 



spring they may be seen in large numbers at Khartoum, 

 hawking gracefully over the bean-fields of the natives. 



330. Strutiiio camelus Linn. 



The Ostrich is widely distributed through the country. I 

 have seen it on the Setit, on the Dinder, on the White Nile 

 and Bahr-el-Ghazal, and in Kordofan. 



The shooting of Ostriches for sport is now entirely 

 prohibited in the Soudan. 



XXV.— Notes on the Parrots. (Part I.) 

 By T. Salvadori, H.M.B.O.U. 



Thirteen years have elapsed since the publication of 

 the twentieth volume of the ' Catalogue of Birds in the 

 British Museum/ which contained the Order Psittaci or 

 Parrots, and not much of a definite kind has been done 

 since as regards the classification of the group, though many 

 new species have been descrihed and not a few obscure forms 

 have been made clear. I have therefore thought it not 

 useless to prepare a sort of Appendix to my previous work, 

 in order to bring up to date our knowledge of the group. 



As regards the general classification of the Parrots, some 

 attempts have been made since the publication of the Cata- 

 logue, but I do not think that any of them are better than 

 mine. 



Messrs. Beddard and Parsons in 1893 published a paper, 

 "On certain Points in the Anatomy of Parrots bearing on 

 their Classification "*. They had studied the syrinx and the 

 myology of the group, but it appeared from their remarks 

 that they were not prepared to produce a complete scheme 

 of classification of the Psittaci. A point, strange to say, 

 on which they seem to have been more decided, is that 

 Stringops does not deserve the high rank of the representative 

 of a family ! 



Prof. Newton (1894), in the 'Dictionary of Birds' 



• Proc. Zool. Soc. Lund, 1893, pp. 507-514, pi. xli. 



