VI PSITTACI 365 



the New Zealand Kea, eats the flesh of living sheep, an acquired 

 taste as remarkable as it is destructive. Parrots alone among 

 Birds habitually manipulate their food in their claws, these claws, 

 moreover, greatly aiding them to creep about the branches or 

 to cling to the mouth of their breeding-holes. The usual cry is 

 harsh and discordant, Lories and Macaws making an especially 

 deafening noise ; but Cockatoos, besides their scream, utter a softer 

 sound, Loriculus has a monosyllabic note, JS^i/mj^hicus and Melo})sit- 

 tacus quite a pretty warble. The female hisses when caught 

 upon her eggs, and in captivity many forms talk and whistle. 

 Holes in trees, crevices in clifls or caves, cavities under stones or 

 roots, and even shallow depressions in the soil, seldom with any 

 bedding, serve for a nest ; the spherical or somewhat pointed eggs, 

 which are often deposited in confinement, being dull white, occa- 

 sionally with a greenish tinge or brownish incubation - stains. 

 The larger species usually lay one, two^ or three, some of the smaller 

 as many as twelve, the size varying greatly (pp. 367, 372). 

 Palaeornis habitually cuts a circular hole in rotten trees, and even 

 bores to a depth of three feet ; Fezoporvs is said to make a mass 

 of grass and rushes in tussocks, Myio'^sittacus monachus a globular 

 fabric with a side entrance ; Nasiterna, FsepJiohis, Cya7iolyseus, and 

 Conurus will breed in holes in ants' nests or steep banks. The male 

 occasionally assists in incubation, and two broods may be reared 

 in a season. Small or large colonies are sometimes formed, and in 

 both the Old and New Worlds large flocks seriously damage ripe 

 maize and corn, or oranges and other fruits. The birds are often 

 killed for eating, and their feathers used for ornament ; for caging, 

 they are limed, captm^ed with decoys, or taken from tlie nest. 



The headquarters of Parrots are in the Australian Eegion and 

 the Malay countries, which possess a majority of the genera and 

 peculiar species ; next follows the Neotropical Eegion ; the Indian 

 and Ethiopian are comparatively poor ; the Palaearctic possesses 

 no existing representative ; and the Nearctic but one, Conurus 

 carolinensis, which early in this century extended northwards to 

 the Great Lakes, but now only inhabits Florida,, Arkansas, and 

 Indian Territory. Cyanolyseus patagonus and Microsittace ferru- 

 (jinea occur at the Straits of Magellan, PoeocejjJialus rohustus at the 

 extreme south of Africa, Cyanorhamphus erythrotis in Macquarie 

 Island ; while many forms occupy most limited areas, especially 

 in the West Indies and the Pacific. Of Coracopsis mascarinus 



