Jffes to which Birds live. 29 



PsiTTACI. 



Le Vaillant^s oft-quoted anecdote oi aGreyVarrotyPsittacus 

 erithacus, which began to lose its memory at 60, to moult 

 irregularly at 65, and to become blind at 90, and died at 93 

 (Hist. Nat. des Perroquets) may be quite true, but is hardly 

 sufficiently established to be in an authenticated list. These 

 familiar pets have repeatedly lived to be live-and-twenty and 

 sometimes thirty, though the stock now commonly imported 

 are so unhealthy that they die in two years. James Jennings 

 refers to one of seventy-seven : he does not say it was Psit- 

 tacus erithacus ('Ornithologia,^ p. 396) , but probably such was 

 the case. 



In 'The Field ' of April 10th and 24th, 1869, Mr. J. Jones 

 and " W. H. M.'' wrote of a Cockatoo of 70, and still alive, 

 which announcement immediately evoked a Scotch Parrot 

 of 72 (/. c. May 8th), but in neither case is the name of 

 the species given —probably Cacatua galerita and Psittacus 

 erithacus are intended. 



The Cacatuidce are indubitably long-lived, especially the 

 familiar Sulphur-crested Cockatoo, which, chained to its 

 stand year after year, never seems to get older, and I have two 

 other credible records of this bird at 81 and 50. But if the 

 members of a certain family at Leckhampton, in Gloucester- 

 shire, are to be trusted, a Cockatoo once lived 120 years ('Land 

 and Water,^ 1870). The old sexton of Leckhampton, whose 

 veracity was supposed to be unimpeachable, told Mr. E. L. 

 Layard he had himself known it " nigh 80 year," and Mr. 

 Layard was not the man to accept such a story without 

 enquiry. 



Mr. Abrahams, the well-known dealer, communicated 

 to Dr. A. G. Butler particulars of a Surinam Amazon 

 credibly believed by him to be 102 years old. An Amazon 

 Parrot well known to Dr. W. T. Greene was more than half 

 this age. The Black Vasa {Coracopsis) of Madagascar has 

 in three or four instances lived to a good old maturity, one 

 in the Zoological Gardens, vouched for by Mr. Sclater *, 



* P. Z. S. 1884, p. 562. 



