288 il/r. ViGORs's and Dr. Horsfield's Description of the 



ders this singular deviation from the general form of the Parrot's 

 tongue less surprising. Our characters of the tongue are drawn 

 from a specimen belonging to a species of this genus, which was 

 for some time alive in this country : and our inferences con- 

 cerning its use are strongly confirmed by the observations of 

 Mr. Caley on the manners of some species, extracts from which 

 will accompany our descrij)tions of the birds. It is to be re- 

 marked, that although the Parrots are in general a long-lived 

 race, and of all birds perhaps the most easily reared, and 

 although the birds of the present group are most numerous in 

 New Holland, few of them have been kept alive for any length 

 of time in a state of confinement. Ignorance most probably 

 of their natural mode of feeding has occasioned this difficulty in 

 rearing them. 



We have reason to believe that the next adjoining group of 

 the present subfamily, the genus Loriiis of the Eastern Islands, 

 is endowed with a similar formation of tongue. These two 

 united groups include some of the bii'ds which exhibit the most 

 elongated and the weakest bills in the family : and the deviation 

 evinced from the general mode of feeding of the family confirms 

 our conjectures that the birds which are distinguished by such 

 characters of the bill are the most aberrant in the group ; while 

 the birds which possess the opposite characters, viz. strength 

 and shortness of bill, are the most typical. It is also to be 

 observed, that the next allied group of the Order of Insessores 

 which adjoins the Parrots, and to which the two aberrant genera 

 at present before us approach most nearly of all that family, is 

 distinguished by the tongue entirely superseding the general 

 functions of the bill in procuring sustenance. The partial use 

 of the tongue in these two genera of Psittacidœ, thus affords an 

 addition to the numberless beautiful instances in which nature 

 blends together the characters of her conterminous groups. 



1. H.E- 



