358 STERNUM OF THE JACKO PARROT. 



And this flexibility which the coracoids have for 

 bringing the shoulder joints together, is not counter- 

 acted by any great strength of the furcal bone ; for, 

 though the two extremities of that bone are enlarged, 

 the branches are slender and straight, which renders 

 them as feeble as the coracoids. Even the blade 

 bones are not formed for taking a very firm hold in 

 their embedment. 



Thus when we examine the point of articulation to 

 which the wing of the parrot is attached, we find it a 

 very feeble one, and one which could not be used in 

 long flight, without great fatigue to the bird. The 

 coracoids and branches of the furcal bone are placed 

 in that position in which they are the least fitted for 

 resisting that strain on the shoulder joint which is 

 necessarily given when a bird flies rapidly ; and they 

 even appear to be loaded with an additional quantity 

 of bone at the joint, for no other apparent purpose 

 than that the joint may be the more unsteady, and 

 the flight of the bird the more feeble and laborious. 

 We would thence, if we reasoned only from the rela- 

 tive structures of the sternal apparatus, be apt to 

 conclude that nature has given to the parrot tribe 

 similar power of foot with the birds of prey, but shorn 

 and crippled them in those characteristic organs of 

 birds, the wings. 



When, however, we take the haunts and the habits 

 of each into consideration, we find that not the jer- 

 falcon herself, in the pride of her finest flight in the 

 free air over the bleak and bushless wild, affords us 

 a better specimen of exquisite mechanical skill, both 

 in the design ' and the accomplishment, than the par- 

 rot among the tangled sprays of a tropical forest. 

 The fine wing of the falcon would avail her nothing 

 in such a place : for it is as unbending as the spirit 



