Parrots, Cuckoos, and Plantain-eaters 



489 



by D. Le Souef} 



NEW ZEALAND KAKA. 

 The Maoris keep this bird as a lure. 



throughout the Australasian region, 

 inclusive of Polynesia, and are highly 

 esteemed as pets, combining great beauty 

 with a very docile disposition and con- 

 siderable talking powers. 



The birds of this section are also 

 known as BRUSH-TONGUED PARROTS, from 

 the presence of a remarkable " brush " 

 borne on the end of the tongue. This is 

 a special adaptation, enabling the birds 

 to feed upon honey ; some, indeed, have 

 this brush particularly well developed, 

 and are almost entirely honey-seekers, 

 whilst others, wherein the brush is less 

 developed, live largely on fruits. Pro- 

 fessor Moseley tells us that honey liter- 

 ally poured from the mouths of BLUE 

 MOUNTAIN-LORIES which he shot at Cape 

 York. 



The COCKATOOS are abundant in the 

 Australian region, but have their head- 

 quarters in the Malay Archipelago. Besides the familiar white-crested form so commonly kept 

 in England, the group includes an iron-grey coloured bird with a bright red head, and a huge 

 black species, which represents the giant of the order. It is a funereal-looking bird, the largest 

 specimens inhabiting New Guinea. One of its most striking features is the beak, which is 

 of enormous size. Its tongue differs from that of other parrots in that it is slender and 

 cylindrical in shape, and of a deep red colour, instead of thick, fleshy, and black. It frequents, 

 Mr. Wallace tells us, the lower parts of the forest, feeding upon various fruits and seeds, but 

 displaying a marked partiality for the kernel of the canary-nut, which grows on a lofty 

 forest-tree ; " and the manner in which it gets at these seeds," writes Mr. Wallace, " shows a 

 correlation of structure and habits which would point to the canary as its special food. The 

 shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will crack it ; it is some- 

 what triangular, and the outside is quite smooth. The manner in which the bird opens these 

 nuts is very curious. Taking one end-ways in its bill, and keeping it firm by a pressure of 

 the tongue, it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged lower 

 mandible. This done, it takes hold of the nut with its foot, and, biting off a piece of leaf, 

 retains it in the deep notch by the upper mandible, and again seizing the nut, which is 

 prevented from slipping by the elastic tissue of the leaf, fixes the edge of the lower mandible 

 in the notch, and a powerful rip breaks off a piece of the shell. Again taking the nut in its 

 claws, it inserts the very long and sharp point of the bill, and picks out the kernel, which is 

 seized hold of, morsel by morsel, by the extensile tongue." 



Of the typical parrots, the best known is the common GREY AFRICAN PARROT, with a red 

 tail, so valued on account of its great talking powers. Other species of this section which 

 should be mentioned here are the PYGMY PARROTS, MACAWS, HAWK-BILLED PARROT, BUDGERIGARS, 

 and OWL-PARROT. 



The first named are the smallest of all the tribe, remarkable as well for the splendour of 

 the plumage as their size, which is less than that of the common sparrow. 



The LONG-TAILED MACAWS, representing the most showy and gaudily coloured of all the 

 Parrot Tribe, inhabit the tropical forests of South America. Mr. Bates describes a flock of 

 scarle1>and-blue macaws, which he came across one day, as looking like a cluster of flaunting 

 banners among the crown of dark green leaves of a bacaba-palm. 



The superb HYACINTHINE MACAW is one of the rarest of the Parrot Tribe, and was found 



02 



