Mr. W. K. Parker on the Osteology of Microglossa Alecto. 135 



creatures belonged to one house : they are the most perfectly anti- 

 thetical of all the feathered tribes. 



Judged by the mere power of flight, the Parrots would not be 

 accounted worthy to stand in so high a position ; but this is only 

 one, among many, of the talents possessed by birds of noble degree. 



Like all those who glory in " high degree," the Parrots have a 

 poor relation or two to abate their pride. The Owl-billed Parrot 

 (Strigops habroptilus) of New Zealand is as lowly as " the younger 

 son of a younger brother." If birds were to be classified by the 

 sternum only, then the Strigops should be put near the Apteryx, 

 and the Tinamou attached to the train of the Peacock. 



If birds be ranked according to the degree of their intelligence, 

 then, without controversy, the familiar Crows and Starlings, Finches, 

 and Singing-birds may take the highest room ; but if power of flight, 

 mere brute strength, and savage audacity shall be considered most 

 decent and becoming to a bird, then let the Eagles and Falcons sit 

 on the throne of the feathered kingdom. But there are qualities, 

 dear to the morphologist, in which the Parrots have the preemi- 

 nence, and stand higher, as Birds, than all other birds ; and although, 

 all things considered, the Crow is the best type and model with 

 which to compare the whole plumy brotherhood, yet in many things 

 the Parrot is a bird of birds ; he is an ultra-type, and sets bounds to 

 the class to which he belongs. 



But this bird, with the wise and solemn face of an Elephant, has, 

 like us, its chief and best qualities resident in its head ; and if the 

 skull of an Ostrich be compared with that of the most psittacine of 

 the Parrots, the difference will appear almost as great as exists be- 

 tween a larva and an imago. 



The type under consideration is one in which the characters of 

 the Parrot, and indeed the characters of a Bird, as such, are carried 

 to their highest pitch. I have long been familiar with this highest 

 kind of Psittacine skull in the genera Plyctolophus and Calypto- 

 rhynchus (see Cat. Mus. Coll. Surg. vol. i. pp. 277, 278, nos. 1440 

 & 144o), and have recently discovered it in the Grass-Parakeet 

 (Melopsittacus undulatus) ; but the genus Microglossa carries it 

 to the fullest degree. 



The teleologist might write a fair volume on the fitnesses dis- 

 played in the skull of this bird ; but the adaptive conditions are of 

 secondary importance to him who would trace the clue of morpho- 

 logical unity through the mazes of nature's unutterable variety. 



The first thing that strikes the eye of the observer is the cleaving 

 of a great transverse cleft through the whole face, in front of the 

 eyes, leaving the enormously developed intermaxillary apparatus, en- 

 closing the vestibular parts of the olfactory organs, on one hand, 

 and the skull, maxillary apparatus, and true olfactory region, on the 

 other. Then we see that not only is the eye bounded beneath by a 

 blending of the lachrymal with the postfrontal, but the latter is an- 

 chylosed to the squamosal also ; and thus, with the true zygomatic 

 arch below, we have three pairs of facial bridges. But the deep, 

 steep-sided, beautifully arched intermaxillaries, the fair, broad fore- 



