242 Mr. Vigors's Sketches in Ornithology . 



M. Le Vaillaut's description of the grand Vasa, while its habiiai 

 oa the other hand is the same as that of the petit Vasa. 



Notwithstanding however we may suggest these doubts, we 

 have not materials in this country for solving them. There is no 

 example at present of the grand Vasa to which we can refer in 

 any of our Museums ; and we are equally at a loss respecting the 

 lesser species. The only specimen of this bird which I can trace 

 as having reached this country since the days of Mr. Edwards, 

 who figured it in the fifth plate of his Natural History of Birds, 

 was in the very valuable collection of Mr. Bullock, at the sale of 

 which in 1819 it was purchased for a Parisian Museum. What- 

 ever therefore may be our doubts as to the diversity of these 

 species, we are bound to keep them distinct, until they are proved 

 to be the same. And as, on taking a general estimate of the 

 characters of our bird, they seem to preponderate in favour of 

 the larger species of M. Le Vaillant, I shall consider it to belong 

 to that species, or the Psittacus Vasa of Dr. Shaw. 



My object however in noticing this bird is not so much to 

 decide the species, as to point out the generick group, to which it 

 belongs. Much confusion has hitherto prevailed as to its affinities, 

 and those of the petit Vasa^ (Psitt. niger, Linn.), which, if not 

 the same species, certainly, as I shall point out hereafter from 

 M. Le Vaillant's description, belongs to the same group. M. Brisson 

 places the latter bird among those species of the Parrots which 

 he distinguishes by an even tail. Linnaius placed it in the same 

 situation, next in affinity to the well known Psili. leucocephalus, 

 which approaches nearly to the type of the true Parrots. At the 

 same time he did not pass over without notice the different struc- 

 ture of its tail, having dwelt both in his specifick definition and 

 in the subsequent description upon the " cauda longa sed ajqualis.'* 

 Dr. Shaw, who first scientifically named the larger species after 

 M. Le Vaillant's description, ranges it and the petit Vasa in the 

 midst of the true Parrots. And Dr. Latham assigns them a situation 

 among the even-tailed birds of this family immediately between the 

 Cockatoos and the last mentioned group. M. Lc Vaillant himself 

 equally considers these birds as belonging to the even-tailed Par- 

 rots ; but he judiciously arranges them before that group, observing 



