PARRICIDE 



by an estuary. Near Langport, to 

 which it is navigable, it receives the 

 Yeo and the Isle, and lower down 

 the Tone joins it. Its length is 35 m. 



Parricide. Murderer of a 

 father. The term is not recognized 

 in English law, no distinction being 

 made between the killing of a 

 father and any other form of mur- 

 der. In Roman law the term in- 

 cluded the murder of other near 

 relatives, e.g. a grandfather, bro- 

 ther, etc., and was punishable by 

 drowning in a sack. See Murder. 



Parrot. Name applied in a 

 broad sense to all birds of the order 

 Psittaci, of which there are about 

 500 species known, from the 

 warmer regions of both the Old and 

 New Worlds. They are distin- 

 guished structurally by the form of 

 the bill. Both mandibles are 

 hooked, the lower biting within the 

 larger, strongly curved upper one, 

 which is hinged to the skull. The 

 feet are of the scansorial type, two 

 of the toes being turned backwards. 



They have brightly, of ten gaudily 

 coloured plumage, are monogam- 

 ous, mostly sociable, and nest in 

 tree holes. They are mainly fruit- 

 eaters, though the kea has in 

 recent years developed a carnivor- 

 ous propensity. The order includes 

 the cockatoos (Plyctolophidae), 

 macaws (Conuridae), parrakeets 

 (Platycercidae), lories (Tricho- 

 glossidae), the true parrots (Psit- 

 tacidae), and others. In general 

 use the name parrot is restricted 

 to birds of the family Psittacidae, 

 which are mainly African, and of 

 these the most familiar in Britain 

 is the grey parrot (Psittacus ery- 

 thacus), of which large numbers are 

 imported. 



The food sh >uld be mainly seeds, 

 such as maize, hemp, canary-seed, 

 with nuts of all kinds except mon- 

 key-nuts ; apple, pear, plum, ban- 

 ana ; raw carrot, dry biscuit, and a 

 stick of soft wood to cut to pieces. 

 There should always be a good sup- 

 ply of coarse, gritty sand ; and two 

 or three times a day the bird should 

 be allowed a drink of water, but 

 a constant supply will be abused. 

 Animal food, even a bone, should 

 never be given. See Bird, colour 

 plate ; Kaka ; Kea ; Lory ; Macaw ; 

 Parrakeet ; Parrot, colour plate. 



Parrot Fish (Scarus), Name 

 applied to several species of 

 fish belonging to the wrasse 

 family, found in tropic seas, one 

 species occurring in the Medi- 

 terranean. The teeth are modi- 

 fied to form sharp biting beaks ; 

 and this, together with their brilli- 

 ant colouring, has given rise to the 

 popular name. They feed upon 

 corals, molluscs, and sea-weeds, 

 which they chew in a curious 

 fashion, giving rise to the ancient 



599O 



notion that they were ruminating 

 animals. The Mediterranean spe- 

 cies was greatly esteemed for the 

 table by the Greeks and Romans. 

 Parr's Bank. British banking 

 company, now part of the London, 

 County, Westminster & Parr's 

 Bank. It was founded as a private 

 bank about 1780, and became 

 a public company in 1865- Its 

 headquarters were at Warrington, 

 and it had branches mainly in 

 Lancashire and Cheshire. Between 

 1865 and 1914 Parr's took over a 

 number of other banks, the most 

 important being Stuckey's (q.v.). 

 When it was amalgamated with the 

 London, County & Westminster 

 Bank in 1918, it had about 300 

 branches and a paid-up capital of 

 2,400,000. The head office was at 4, 

 Bartholomew's Lane, London, E.G. 

 Parry. General name of a group 

 of islands in the Arctic Ocean. 

 They are situated N. of Lancaster 

 Sound, Melville Sound, and Bar- 

 row Strait, and W. of Baffin Bay. 

 They include Devon, Cornwallis, 

 Bathurst, Melville, and Prince Pat- 

 rick islands. Named after Sir W. E. 

 Parry, who visited them in his 1819 

 expedition, they were further ex- 

 plored by the expeditions in search 

 of Sir John Franklin and others. 



Parry, SIR CHARLES HUBERT 

 HASTINGS (1848-1918). British or- 

 ganist and composer. Born at 

 Bournemouth, 

 Feb. 27, 1848, 

 he was edu- 

 cated at Eton 

 and Exeter 

 College, Ox- 

 f o r d, and 

 studied music 

 a t Stuttgart 

 and in London. 

 In 1883 he was 

 appointed pro- 

 fessor of com- 

 position and of musical history 

 at the Royal College of Music, and 

 he became its director in 1895. 

 From 1899 to 1908 he was profes- 

 sor of music at Oxford. He was 

 knighted in 1898 and made a bar- 

 onet in 1902. He died Oct. 7, 1918. 

 Parry's compositions include sym- 

 phonies, overtures, and chamber 

 music, several fine oratorios, of 

 which Judith and Job are the best 

 known, and a beautiful setting of 

 Milton's Blest Pair of Sirens. He 

 wrote The Art of Music, 1893; 

 Style in Musical Art, 1900 ; The 

 Music of the 17th Century, 1902 ; 

 and J. S. Bach, 1910. 



Parry, SIR WILLIAM EDWARD 

 (1790-1855). British explorer. 

 Born at Bath, Dec. 19, 1790, he 

 entered the navy in 1806, was em- 

 ployed in protecting whalers in 

 Spitsbergen, 1811-13, and five 

 years later accompanied Ross's 



Sir Hubert Parry, 

 British organist 



Rutscll 



Sir W. E. Parry, 

 British explorer 



PARSEES 



Arctic expedition. In 1819 he was 

 given command of the Hccla, and 

 set .sail to find the North- West 

 Passage. Passing through Baffin 

 Bay he made 114 W. He returned 

 to England in 1820. From 1821-25 

 he made two other Arctic voyages 

 of discovery, and in 1827 he sailed 

 to Spitsbergen, and there made 

 an attempt to 

 reach the N. 

 Pole by boat 

 and, sledge. 

 Surmounting 

 great difficul- 

 ties, and ham- 

 pered by the 

 southward drift 

 of the ice, Parry 

 reached 82 45' 

 N., a record 

 which was unsurpassed for nearly 

 fifty years. Returning in 1829, he 

 was knighted, and later became 

 deputy governor of Greenwich 

 Hospital. He died at Ems, July 8, 

 1855. His best known works are : 

 Voyages to the North-West Pas- 

 sage, 1821 ; and Narrative of an 

 Attempt to Reach the North Pole 

 in Boats, 1828. See Memoirs of 

 Rear-Adm. Sir W. E. Parry, E. 

 Parry, 1857. 



Parsees OR PARSIS (inhabi- 

 tants of Pars, or Persia). Religious 

 community of India and parts of 

 Persia. In India, where they form 

 a leading section of the native 

 trading classes, . they numbered 

 in 1921 rather more than 100,000, 

 living mostly in Bombay and 

 other places on the W. coast. 

 Their religion, known as Parseeism, 

 is the modem form of Zoroas- 

 trianism. On the Arab conquest 

 of Persia, in 651, the inhabitants 

 were forcibly converted to Mahom- 

 edanism, with the exception of 

 those who fled the country, and a 

 few others whose descendants, 

 numbering about 9,000, main- 

 tain then* religion in Persia to 

 the present day. Parsees, known, 

 from their regard for fire as an 

 emblem of purity, as Fire-worship- 

 pers, are also called Ghebers or 

 Guebers, an Arabic term for un- 

 believers. 



The Parsees of India are the 

 most enterprising and educated 

 native community, and many 

 have devoted their wealth and 

 ability to philanthropic and public 

 ends. They are notable for their 

 integrity, benevolence, intelligence, 

 loyalty, and clean living. They 

 expose their dead on iron gratings in 

 towers of silence, where the bones, 

 denuded of flesh by vultures, drop 

 into a pit, and are afterwards re- 

 moved to a resting-place under- 

 ground. /See India ; Zend-Avesta ; 

 Zoroastrianism ; consult also His- 

 tory of theP.,D. F. Karaka, 1884. 



