40 Mr. Vigors's Sketches in Ornithologi/. 



Sed circumsiliens modo hue, modo illuc. 

 Ad solum dominam usque pipilabaty* 



Catull. Carra. II.— III. 



While the tears and swoln eyes of its mistress — 



" Flendo turgiduH rubent ocelli — " 



bear testimony that the female heart was not made of '' sterner 

 stuff" in the days of old than in the present, but that equally susr 

 ' ceptible of regard for the little favourites that looked up to it for 

 support and protection, as in the most refined of modern time^) 

 it could equally lament 



" The squirrel missing, or the sparrow flown." 



Among the subjects connected with Natural History, which, 

 like the preceding, are either Incidentally referred to by the 

 classick writers, or expressly described, I have been particularly 

 attracted by a group which claimed a high regard with antiquity, 

 — the Parrots of the ancients. Those who are conversant with 

 the better times of Greece and Rome, or rather of the latter 

 empire, for it was at a late period of the Grecian annals that 

 Parrots became known, are aware that these birds, from 

 their beauty, their docile manners, and the inaitative powers + 



* The beauty of these verses of Catullus seems not to have been lost on the 

 Romans themselves. They appear to have been popular among them, and to 

 have been referred to as we would allude to our Shakespeare or Byron. See 

 particularly Martial. Lib. I. Epig. de Catella Publi. 



•' Issa est passere nequior Catulli, 

 Issa est purior ospulo columbae." 



+ The powers of voice and of imitation belonging to these birds could not be 

 passed over by those to whom they appear to have been so familiar. Aristotle 

 accounts for these powers as the consequence of the formation of their tongue 

 which approaches that of man. " OXus §£ yx(/.-\'mvy(oc, ntxira. ^gxr^xyviKoi. 

 V.011 •jiXacrvyXurrx xxi (ji^ii/.toTina' Kxt yxp to Ivoikov o^novj « iI/ZTTaJCij ra 

 T^tyoiA-ivov ocvi^wjroyXoTroV) ToiovTovitrrt." Hist. Anim. VIII. 14. 6. Solinus 

 apparently following Aristotle makes the same allusion—" lingua lata, mul- 

 toque latior quam caeteris avibus. Unde perficitur ut artici'lata verba penitus 

 «iqquatur. Quod ingenium ila Romaua delitise niiratae sunt, ut Barbari 



