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 ery 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, Nymphicus and Melopsit- 
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 cliffs 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, ocea- 
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). 
Palacornis habitually cuts a circular hole in rotten trees, and even 
bores to a depth of three feet; Pezoporus is said to make a mass 
of grass and rushes in tussocks, Myiopsittacus monachus a globular 
fabric with a side entrance ; Wasiterna, Psephotus, Cyanolyseus, and 
Conurus will breed in holes in ants’ nests or steep banks. The male 
occasionally assists in incubation, and two broods may be reared 
Inaseason. 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, captured with decoys, or taken from the nest. 
The headquarters of Parrots are in the Australian Region and 
the Malay countries, which possess a majority of the genera and 
pecuhar species ; next follows the Neotropical Region ; the Indian 
and Ethiopian are comparatively poor; the Palaearctic possesses 
no existing representative ; and the Nearctic but one, Conwrus 
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- 
ginea occur at the Straits of Magellan, Poeocephalus robustus at the 
extreme south of Africa, Cyawnorhamphus erythrotis in Macquarie 
Island; while many forms occupy most limited areas, especially 
in the West Indies and the Pacific. Of Coracopsis mascarinus 
