PARRAMATTA 



PARRY 



783 



only one we shall notice is the Zebra Parrakeet 

 (Melopfitlacus undulatus), a veiy beautiful little 

 species, which has often been brought to England, 

 and will breed in confinement. In the vast inland 

 plains of Australia this parrakeet is to be seen in 

 flocks of many hundreds feeding on the seeds of 

 the grasses, which afford food also to many other 

 small species. See PARROT. 



Parramatta, a town of New South Wales, 

 stands on a western extension of Port Jackson, 14 

 miles W. of Sydney, with which it is connected 

 Imtli by steamer and railway. The streets are 

 wide and regular. 'Colonial tweeds,' ' Parramatta 

 cloths ' ( first made at Bradford from wool exported 

 ht'iice), beer, soap, candles, and tiles are manufac- 

 tured. Much fruit, especially the orange, is grown 

 here. Pop. (1881) 8433; (18H8) 12,000. Parra- 

 niiitta, formerly called Rosehill, is, after Sydney, 

 the olilent town in the colony, Laving been laid 

 out in 1790. 



Parrliasins, one of the greatest painters of 

 ancient Greece, was at Athens and already dis- 

 tinguished among artists about the year 470 B.C. 

 A<-oording to Xenophon, he held a conversation 

 with Socrates, and he was a younger contemporary 

 of Zenxis. Parrhasius appears to have surpassed 

 all his predecessors in purity of design, accuracy of 

 drawing, force of expression, and what is techni- 

 cally called 'finish.' And it seems that his vanity 

 and pride were equal to his artistic skill. 



Parricide ( Lat. paricidn ) is rather a popular 

 than a legal term. In the Roman law it compre- 

 hended every one who murdered a near relative ; 

 but in English the term is usually confined to the 

 murderer of one's fattier, or of one who is in loco 

 jiiirnitis. The parricide does not, in any respect, 

 differ in Britain from the murderer of a stranger; 

 in both cases the punishment is death by hanging. 

 In the Roman law a parricide was punished in a 

 much more severe manner, being sewed up in a 

 leather sack, along with a live cock, viper, dog, 

 and ape, and cast into the sea. 



Pnrrisll, EDWARD (1822-72), an American 

 pharmacist, member of a family of distinguished 

 physicians, connected for many years with Phila- 

 delphia, and Ijest known through"' Parrish's Chem- 

 ical Food." This is the popular name for a non- 

 otticinal preparation medicinally known as Com- 

 pound >'///"/< of Phosfiluite of Iron, every drachm 

 of which contains 1 grain of phosphate of iron, 2J 

 of phosphate of lime, besides soda and potash. 



Parrot, the type of a large and important 

 group of birds, divided into numerous families 

 and genera. The parrots form an extremely 

 compact group, showing but little structural 

 variation, and offering no 'intermediate forms' 

 to indicate their relationship to other birds. It 

 has licen suggested that they come nearest to the 

 birds of prey, but this is at present no more than a 

 suggestion. They are pre-eminently tropical birds, 

 ami arlioreal in habit ; some species, however, 

 range into colder countries e.g. Patagonia and 

 New Zealand ami some, such as the burrowing 

 Ground Parrot of New Zealand (Strigops), now 

 nearly exterminated by the cats mn wild which 

 infest the scrub, are not arboreal. They are fruit 

 and seed eating birds, with the exception of the 

 Kea (n.v. ), which has, since the colonisation of 

 New Zealand, taken to a carnivorous diet. As 

 n rule the parrots are brightly coloured birds, 

 being often, like other forest-frequenting crea- 

 tures, green ; there are some species, however, 

 which are not brilliantly coloured. There is 

 occasionally a difference of colour in the two 

 sexes, which is Ijest marked in species belonging to 

 the genus Eclectiis ; in these the prevailing colour 

 of the female is red, and of the male green ; the 



differences are so marked that they were actually 

 referred to quite different genera until Dr A. B. 

 Meyer showed conclusively that the red and green 

 forms were merely the two sexes of the same 

 species. The intelligence of parrots has been often 

 commented upon, as also their power of imitating 

 human speech ; any one, however, who can endure 

 for a sufficient time that pandemonium of noise, the 

 parrot-house at the Zoological Gardens, will find 

 that the clearness of utterance of the Myna or 

 Indian Starling exceeds that of any parrot. The 

 great age to which 

 parrots will live has 

 often been exaggerated, 

 but it is at anyrate 

 certain that some 

 species will survive for 

 fifty years in confine- 

 ment, for an individual 

 of the Greater Vasa 

 Parrakeet ( Coracopsis 

 vasa) lived for more 

 than fifty years at the 

 Zoological Gardens. 

 Parrots make their 

 nests in holes, and lay 

 white eggs, as is com- 

 monly the case where 

 the eggs are concealed. 

 Garrod has divided the The Gray Parrot 



parrots, on anatomical 



grounds, into two families : ( 1 ) Palreornithidae 

 (including the Cockatoo, q.v., and Lory, q.v., 

 the flightless New Zealand Strigops, and the 

 large genus Pal.-eornis) and (2) Psittacidse (in- 

 cluding the Macaws, the African parrots of the 

 genus Psittacus, the American Chrysotis, the 

 Australian Platycercus, and some other forms). 

 The Gray Parrot (Psittacus erythacus), which has 

 been a familiar cage-bird in Europe for hundreds 

 of years, is a native of Africa, especially of West 

 Africa. The Great Macaw belongs to the sub- 

 family of Conurime, found mainly in America, one 

 genus only (Pal.Tornis) occurring in India and 

 Africa. See Dr W. T. Greene's Parrots in Captivity 

 (3 vols. 1884). 



Parrot-fish, or PARROT-WRASSE (Scarus), a 

 genus of fishes of the family Labridie. The name 

 seems to refer to the frequently bright colours, and 

 partly to the shape of the mouth ; for the jaws 

 form a strong and sharp beak, and the teeth are 

 soldered together. Over a hundred species are 

 known, especially from the tropical coral-banks, 

 on which they browse. The most northern species 

 (S. cretensis) is the famous Scams, about which 

 Greek and Roman epicures were extraordinarily 

 enthusiastic. Wonderful stories were told of its 

 love, its wisdom, its habit of rumination, and the 

 sounds which it makes. Pliny relates that in the 

 reign of the Emperor Claudius a lot of Scari were 

 brought from the Troad, released in the Italian 

 sea, and strictly protected for five years till they 

 became very abundant. The fish feeds chiefly on 

 Kucus, and is certainly very palatable. 



Parry, SIR WILLIAM EDWARD, Arctic navi- 

 gator, was born at Bath, 19th December 1790, en- 

 tered the navy as midshipman in 1806, and saw some 

 active service against the Danes in 1808. In 1810 

 he was sent to the Arctic regions in command of a 

 ship, for the purwise of protecting the British whale- 

 fisheries. At tliis time he worked out rules for 

 determining accurately the altitude of the pole by 

 observations of the fixed stars. Purry took com- 

 mand in five expeditions to the Arctic regions : ( 1 ) 

 in 1818, under Ross, who set out to find tlie North- 

 west Passage; (2) in 1819, in chief command of 

 two vessels, lie explored Barrow Strait, Prince 



