XVIII. THE PARROT. 



" Fraught with antics as the Indian bird."" -Wordsworth. 



THE Parrot may fairly claim to be the Indian bird par 

 excellence, for the peacock and fowl had been so long known 

 in Europe, when he arrived to gladden the hearts of Greek 

 bird fanciers, that they had found their way into mytho- 

 logy ; and we hardly think of them as foreigners ourselves. 

 But the Parrot, always a captive and renowned for its 

 power of speech, has always remained a type of what is 

 gorgeous, tropical, and strange. This is right enough in a 

 way, for Parrots are very unlike any other birds, European 

 or otherwise, and they are pre-eminently characteristic of 

 warm regions all round the world. But India is not rich in 

 species of Parrots, nor Africa either ; the great haunts of 

 these birds are South America and the island continent of 

 Australia and its satellites. And here we see the hardi- 

 ness of the Parrot constitution ; a large parrakeet (Cyano- 

 lyseus patagonus) haunts the bleak plains of Patagonia ; 

 a smaller one (Cyanorhamphus unicolor) crawls among the 

 tussock-grass on the remote Antipodes Island, so much in 

 fear of the violent winds which sweep its home that it 

 never takes wing ; and it is only high up on the New Zea- 

 land Alps that the great sheep-killing Kea (Nestor notdbilis), 

 which looks as much like a buzzard as a Parrot, makes its 

 horrible meals off living sheep. It would seem therefore 



