PARROT. 591 



the place of the nectar which they gather in their wild state. Some 

 have been kept alive for a few weeks, by syrups ; but this nourish- 

 ment, fine as it may seem, must be gross, when compared with 

 what is commonly gathered by the?e little flutterers among the 

 flowers. Buffon thinks that honey would have proved a better 

 substitute for their ordinary food. 



These little birds are neither shy nor suspicious. They allow 

 themselves to be approached within five or six steps, and thus fall 

 an easy prey to the Indians, who catch them by the artifice of a 

 twig covered with lime, and held out near the flower about which 

 they are fluttering. When taken they instantly expire ; and after 

 their death are worn as ear-rings by the young Indian ladies. 

 The Peruvians had at one time the art of composing paintings of 

 their feathers, of very great elegance and lustre. 



The smallest species of the whole genus is called emphatically 

 trochilus minimus, or least humming-bird. This is smaller than 

 several of our bees ; being scarcely a quarter of an inch in length. 

 Some of them do not weigh more than twenty grains ; and none 

 of them more than about forty-five. 



[Pantologia. 



SECTION IV. 



Parrot, 

 Psittacus. Link. 



This is a numerous kind, and includes the common parrot, cock- 

 atoos, lories, paroquets, and maccaws. 



Of all foreign birds, this genus is the best known in Europe : from 

 its docility, and the beauty of its plumage, it has been imported in 

 great numbers, and in those countries where it is indigenous, it is 

 the most numerous of all the feathered tribes. The parrot is an 

 iutratropical bird, and is found from twenty-four to twenty-five 

 degrees on either side of the equator. Although it lives in the tem- 

 perate climates of Europe, yet it does not frequently breed there; 

 and its spirits and longevity are diminished in a temperature so littk 

 suited to the warmth of its constitution. Parrots are so various in 

 size, and in the shades and distributions of their colours, that it is 

 utterly impossible for language to follow these countless gradations; 

 and the task, though it could be accomplished, would neither prove 

 instructive nor entertaining. 



