201 IIISTOUY Of 



there was but one sort of them known among the ancients, and 

 that at a time when they preteriJed to be masters of the world. 

 If nothing else could serve to show the vanity of a Romaii's 

 boast, the parrot-tribe might be an instance, of which there are a 



thu ond, among wliich, are arranged the greater portion of the lories of 

 Buffon. 



The parrots are eminently climbing birds, as the form, the arrangement, 

 and the strength of their toes clearly evince. When they walk on the ground, 

 it is with a slowness, whicli is owing to a vacillating motion of the body, 

 occasioned by the shortness and separation of their feet, in which the base 

 of sustentation is very wide. They frequently place the point or upper 

 part of their bill on the ground, which thus serves them as a point of sup- 

 port. In climbing, its hooked form is still more useful to them ; and oflon 

 when they hold any object iu this bill, they rest upon the branches by the 

 under part of their lower mandible. When they descend, they sustain them 

 selves by the upper. Tliis is a common habit with the majority of the par 

 rot tribe. Still, there are some species, which, liaving more elevated legs, 

 toes less long and less crooked, can walk on the ground with tolerable 

 swiftness, and which never perch. These have been formed by Illiger into 

 a separate genus under the name of Pezoponis. Others, again, have the 

 tarsi short and flat, on which they rest in walking. 



The wings of tlie parrots being generally short, and their bodies bulky, 

 they have some difficulty in rising to a certain point of elevation. But that 

 once attained, they fly very well, and often with much rapidity^ and through 

 a considerable extent of space. The majority confine themselves to lofty 

 and thickly tufted woods, frequently on the borders of cultivated lands, the 

 productions of which they plunder and destroy. Their ordinary mode of 

 flight is from one branch to another ; and it frequently happens, that they 

 will not fly continuously, except when pursued. Many of them emigrate 

 according to the season, and, in particular, the Carolina parrots. Such tra- 

 vel every year .some hundreds of leagues, diflfering in this respect from the 

 nabits of the others ; but they are comparatively few in niunber. The dif 

 ficulty of flight, with many, is the cause of their restriction within narrow 

 limits ; and their concentration in certain islands, while they are not found 

 in others, which border closely on the former. This is peculiarly the ca.se in 

 many of the island groups of Polynesia. 



The food of the parrots consists principally of the pulps of fruits, such as 

 those of the banana, the coffee-tree, the palm, the lemon, &c. They are 

 especially fond of almonds. Some cockatoos of New Holland are said to 

 live on roots, and the pezopori seek their aliment in herbs. 



In domestication the parrots, maccaws, parakeets, and cockatoos, show 

 the same partiality for vegetable seeds, and, in general, are fed very well 

 on hemp-seed, the skins or husks of which they detach with wonderful ad- 

 dress. Some that receive bones to grnaw, are kno^Ti to acquire a very de- 

 termined taste for animal substances, but especially for the tendons, liga- 

 ments, and other less succulent parts. From feeding thus, some parrots 

 contract the habit of plucking out their own feathers, that they may suck 

 the stem ; and this becomes so imperious a want with them, that they strip 

 their bodies absolutely naked, not leaving a vestige of do^Ti wherever the 



