176 Fariey, Ornithology at St. Marks. Agu 
astonishing resemblance to that other weird one of six feathers worn 
by the famous rooster of the spire of the West Barnstable meeting- 
house on Cape Cod. 
Facing the Cock and the Hens stand the Ducks. Like their 
vis-a-vis neighbors these “clean”’ fowl seem also to say; “We are 
seven.”’ Among them the inevitable Mallard, so frequent in Italian 
art, with his green head and white neck-ring appears. The Com- 
mon Fowl alone excepted, no bird of economic importance has so 
greatly profited man; and the story of the domestication of this 
stock-form — the original of the modern barnyard Duck — is 
lost in the dim beginnings of history. 
One last barnyard bird is the discordant Guinea Hen. The pair 
are crudely colored, for their blue dress has only rudimentary white 
streaks instead of being properly polka-dotted. Their red combs 
and wattles are also ineffective. Yet the species is unmistakable. 
The pair stand at the feet of Noah, and, like the Quail, look up 
trustingly into the face of the builder of the ship. 
Not all the birds in this striking mosaic-picture are identifiable. 
Doubtless the artist evolved certain “freaks.” But in addition to 
various nondescripts the like of which were never seen on land or 
sea, there are a pair of long-tailed and red-billed green Parrots 
which are plainly the common Indian species Paleornis torquata. 
This is the “Ring Parrot”? which became known to Grecian bird- 
fanciers as one of the results of Alexander’s Indian campaigns. 
Linné, indeed, believed the historic bird to be the Javan species 
of the genus which he named accordingly alexandri. But this 
species never could have come in contact with the Macedonian 
king’s sailors. Nor is there much reason to think, as some have 
argued, that P. ewpatria, the Cingalese species of this long-tailed 
Parroquet group, was the famous green parrot with a red ring on its 
neck which Alexander’s people brought back to Europe. The 
weight of opinion favors the common Ring-necked Parroquet of 
India — P. torquata—as the Alexandrine bird, and its generic 
name sets forth its antiquity. 
It should be observed that the half neck-ring of P. torquata is 
rosy, not white as in the mosaic. But here again we must not make 
too deep scrutiny into the mosaicist’s mutiny. Probably he found 
that on the arch overhead the relatively small neck-ring of the bird 
