PARROT 689 
far back: in 1867-68 Dr. Finsch published an excellent monograph 
of the Parrots,! regarding them as a Family, in which he admitted 26 
genera, forming 5 subfamilies ; but only in the single group NESTOR 
did he recognize characters that were not external. In 1874 Garrod 
communicated to the Zoological Society the result of his dissection of 
examples of 82 species of Parrots, which had lived in its gardens, and 
these results were published in its Proceedings for that year (pp. 586- 
598, pls. Ixx. lxxi.) The principal points to which he attended were 
the arrangement of the CAROTID artery, and the presence or absence 
of an AMBIENS muscle, an OIL-GLAND and a FURCULA ; but except as 
regards the last character he unfortunately almost wholly neglected the 
rest of the skeleton, looking upon such osteological features as the 
formation of an orbital ring and peculiarities of the atlas as “ of 
minor importance ”—an estimate to which nearly every anatomist 
will demur. Indeed the investigations of Prof. A. Milne-Edwards 
(Ann. Se. Nat. Zoologie, ser. 5, vi. pp. 91-111; viii. pp. 145-156) 
on the bones of the head in Parrots make it clear that these alone, 
and especially the maxilla, present features of much significance, and 
if his investigations had not been carried on for a special object, but 
had been extended to other parts of the skeleton, there is little doubt 
that they would have removed some of the greatest difficulties. The 
one osteological character to which Garrod trusted, namely, the con- 
dition of the furcula, contributes little towards a safe basis of classi- 
fication. That it is wholly absent in some genera of Parrots had long 
been known, but its imperfect ossification, it appears, is not attended 
in some cases by any diminution of volant powers, which tends to 
shew that it is an unimportant character, an inference confirmed by 
the fact that it was found wanting in genera placed geographically 
so far apart that the loss must have had in some of them an in- 
dependent origin. Thus grounded, his scheme was so manifestly 
artificial that further criticism would here be useless; the greatest 
merit of his method is that, as before mentioned (LOVE-BIRD), he 
gave sufficient reasons for distinguishing between the genera 
‘Agapornis and Psittacula. In the Journal fiir Ornithologie for 1881 
Dr. Reichenow published a Conspectus Psittacorum, founded, as so 
many others? have been, on external characters only. He made 9 
Families of the group, and recognized 45 genera, and 442 species, 
besides subspecies. In 1883 he brought to completion a work,* 
finely illustrated by Herr G. Miitzel, which forms a concise mono- 
graph. His grouping is generally very different from Garrod’s, but 
1 Die Pupageien monographisch bearbeitet. Leiden: 1867-68. 2 vols. 8vo. 
2 Such, for instance, as Kuhl’s treatise with the same title, which appeared in 
1820, and Wagler’s Monographia Psittacorum, published in 1832—both good of 
_their kind and time. 
3 Vogelbilder aus fernen Zonen. Abbildungen und Beschreibungen der Papageien. 
Kassel : 1878-83. 
44 
