152 PYE KIND. PARROT. 



nation are preserved among them ; and they usually hunt 

 and eat together. 



ORDER II. P1C&, OR THE PYE KIND. 



BIRDS of the pye kind are distinguished by having a 

 beak in some degree resembling a wedge, and formed for 

 cleaving ; legs short and strong ; bodies slender and im- 

 pure, from their subsisting on miscellaneous food. They 

 generally breed in trees ; and the females are fed by the 

 males during the period of incubation. 



THE PARROT. 



In the vegetable and mineral kingdoms, minute descrip- 

 tion is often necessary for enabling us to distinguish be- 

 tween what may be useful or injurious, poisonous or salu- 

 brious ; but, among animals, where species vary only by 

 shades of colour, which the pencil alone can explain, it 

 might be thought superfluous to enter into particular 

 details of what language at best can very indistinctly 

 describe. 



Linnaeus makes forty-seven species in the beautiful 

 family of parrots ; and probably he has not described more 

 than half of them ; but the history of the genus, which 

 applies to every individual of which it is composed, may 

 be here sufficient for every purpose. 



The distinguishing characters of the parrot family are, 

 that the bill is hooked ; that the upper mandible is fur- 

 nished with a moveable cere ; that the nostrils are situated 

 in the base of the beak ; that the tongue is fleshy, obtuse, 

 and entire ; and that the feet are formed for climbing. 



For the sake of distinction, this genus has been divided 

 into MACCAWS, which are considerably larger than the 

 rest of the kind, and approach the raven in size ; COCA- 

 TOOS, which are easily known by their beautiful crests ; 

 PARROTS, properly so called, of a middling size, varied 



