On a group of Psittacidce known to the Ancients. 61 



a tendency to a suctorial mode of feeding, I felt much anxiety 

 to ascertain this point : but although the Blue Mountain Lory 

 has frequently been brought alive to this country, it has not been 

 until lately that I have been enabled to examine the structure 

 of the tongue. By the kindness of a gentleman,* whose ex- 

 tensive anatomical preparations of birds, executed -with an 

 accuracy and elegance hitherto unparalleled, and whose acute 

 observations on the structure of their principal organs which 

 have come before him in the course of such interesting labours 

 promise the most beneficial results to science, I have at length 

 had an opportunity of seeing the tongue of a recent specimen. 

 I have thus ascertained that this member in the species in ques- 

 tion is totally difierent from the tongues of Parrots in general, 

 which it may be recollected bear a considerable resemblance to 

 that of man, — so much so as to have caused Aristotle to call these 

 birds indiscriminately ■^trra.yt.i) and av^^wnoyXorrov^ and to have oc- 

 casioned the epigrammatist in the foregoing quotation + from the 

 *' Anthologia" to invest the group with the epithet of IS^oroyn^vs ; 

 — the structure of it in fact is decidedly brushlike or tubular. 

 Besides Psit. hcematodus this genus contains two species hitherto 

 confounded with that bird, and also Psit. concintius, Shaw, and 

 pusillus, Lath.]: This group however belongs to the Ornithology of 

 New Holland ; and as Dr. Horsfield and myself are engaged in in- 

 vestigating that subject with a reference to the extensive Australa- 



* I am indebted to Mr. Yarrell of St. James's for the opportunity of ex- 

 amining the tongue of this bird, and of exhibiting it at a Meeting of the Zoo- 

 logical Club of the Linnean Society [April 12th, 1824] ; as well as for much 

 valuable information respecting the internal anatomy of birds, which has 

 thrown considerable light upon my researches into their affinities. A vast 

 fund of truly scientifick information may be deduced from the researches which 

 that gentleman has pursued with much assiduity and success, 



t See p. 42. 



:{: I am informed by Mr. Caley, the founder of the valuable Australasian 

 collection belonging to the Linnean Society, that the above little species Psit. 

 pusillus feeds occasionally by suction. He has himself supplied that bird witli 

 honey, and moistened sugar, which it imbibed with ease and seeming delight. 

 The brushlike structure of the tongue in this species is mentioned also I find 

 by Dr. Shaw [Gen. Zool. Vol. VIII. p. 471.] and Dr. Latham [Syn. Vol. U. 

 p. 194. Ed.2''''] 



