XVIII 



PARROTS AND WOODPECKERS 



" He's green, with an enchanting tuft ; 



He melts me with his small black eye : 

 He'd look inimitable stuffed, 

 And knows it but he will not die." 



Fly Leaves. 



" Straightway he knew the voice of all fowls and heard withal how 

 the woodpeckers chattered in the brake beside him." 



The Story of the Volsungs and Niblungs. 



PARROTS " common green parrots " Palceornis 

 torquatus, the rose-ringed paroquet of ornithologists, 

 are, in many parts of India, as well and justifiably 

 detested as crows and sparrows are everywhere by 

 all right-thinking persons; but in the immediate 

 neighbourhood of Calcutta they are comparatively 

 rare, and are consequently rather admired for their 

 good-looks than hated for their noisy and mischievous 

 habits. In places where they devastate gardens and 

 fields, ruin the thatch of roofs by burrowing in its 

 thickness, and are for ever storming about in shrieking 

 multitudes, it is hardly to be wondered at that their 



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