1865.] MR. PARKER ON THE OSTEOLOGY OF MICROGLOSSA. 235 
3. On THE OsTEOLOGY OF MICROGLOSSA ALECTO. 
By W. K. Parker, F.Z.S. 
Having been busy of late with the study of the skull and its 
development in the Ostrich tribe, Iam the more sensitive to the 
peculiar ornithic excellences of the Parrot family. Indeed, but for 
their livery, it could hardly have been supposed that these opposite 
creatures belonged to one house: they are the most perfectly anti- 
thetical of all the feathered tribes. 
Judged by the mere power of flight, the Parrots would not be 
accounted worthy to stand in so high a position; but this is only 
one, among many, of the talents possessed by birds of noble degree. 
Like all those who glory in “‘ high degree,” the Parrots have a 
poor relation or two to abate their pride. The Owl-billed Parrot 
(Strigops habroptilus) of New Zealand is as lowly as “‘ the younger 
son of a younger brother.” If birds were to be classified by the 
sternum only, then the Sérigops should be put near the Apterya, 
and the Tinamou attached to the train of tht Peacock. 
If birds be ranked according to the degree of their intelligence, 
then, without controversy, the familiar Crows and Starlings, Finches, 
and Singing-birds may take the highest room ; but if power of flight, 
mere brute strength, and savage audacity shall be considered most 
decent and becoming to a bird, then let the Eagles and Falcons sit 
on the throne of the feathered kingdom. But there are qualities, 
dear to the morphologist, in which the Parrots have the preemi- 
nence, and stand higher, as Birds, than all other birds ; and although, 
all things considered, the Crow is the best type and model with 
which to compare the whole plumy brotherhood, yet in many things 
the Parrot is a bird of birds ; he is an ultra-type, and sets bounds to 
the class to which he belongs. 
But this bird, with the wise and solemn face of an Elephant, has, 
like us, its chief and best qualities resident in its head; and if the 
skull of an Ostrich be compared with that of the most psittacine of 
the Parrots, the difference will appear almost as great as exists be- 
tween a larva and an imago. 
The type under consideration is one in which the characters of 
the Parrot, and indeed the characters of a Bird, as such, are carried 
to their highest pitch. I have long been familiar with this highest 
kind of Psittacine skull in the genera Plyctolophus and Calypto- 
rhynchus (see Cat. Mus. Coll. Surg. vol. i. pp. 277, 278, nos. 1440 
& 1445), and have recently discovered it in the Grass-Parakeet 
(Melopsittacus undulatus); but the genus Microglossa carries it 
to the fullest degree. , 
The teleologist might write a fair volume on the fitnesses dis- 
played in the skull of this bird; but the adaptive conditions are of 
secondary importance to him who would trace the clue of morpho- 
logical unity through the mazes of nature’s unutterable variety. 
The first thing that strikes the eye of the observer is the cleaving 
of a great transverse cleft through the whole face, in front of the 
eyes, leaving the enormously developed intermaxillary apparatus, en- 
