210 ARTICULATION BY PARROTS. 



This tribe are more peculiarly characteristic of the 

 tropical forests than any other of the feathered races; 

 because, though they are often found flying over the 

 open places between clump and clump of the trees, 

 and shifting from place to place as they exhaust the 

 supply of food, they are more in the trees, and, feel- 

 ing the perfection of their climbing powers, are less 

 apt to take wing on being observed, than any race 

 which inhabits the same places. They are constantly 

 in motion, except when they seek their repose, which 

 is usually in the islets of rivers, or other places which 

 are not easily accessible, where they resort in 

 numbers ; and when they are in motion they are 

 abundantly clamorous. Their natural voices are very 

 harsh, but they are easily taught to whistle, to arti- 

 culate, and to imitate very varied sounds. 



It is not owing to the form of the bill or the tongue 

 that parrots or any other birds articulate, because their 

 organ of voice is at the lower or pulmonary end of 

 the windpipe, and not at the larynx or upper end. 

 But their powers of articulation are sometimes really 

 wonderful : the coincidences between the questions 

 put to them and the answers which they return, must 

 in all cases be regarded as purely accidental ; and 

 they claim their appearance of understanding, just as 

 the predictions of pretended seers do their supposed 

 knowledge of the future, from the fact that the ninety 

 nine cases in which there is no coincidence are for- 

 gotten, while the one case out of the hundred in which 

 the answer agrees with the question is remembered 

 and repeated. 



The disposition which these birds have to imitate 

 sounds, not only different from their own hoarse cries 

 in their native forests, but from any which they can 

 hear there, are, however, indications of a very curious 



