96 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



To judge from the brief descriptions of the writers of 

 antiquity, it would appear that the present species was 

 then, as now, more frequently brought to Europe than 

 any other of its group. The characters given by Pliny, 

 Solinus, and Apuleius, among the naturalists, and the 

 equally expressive phrases of Oppian and Ovid among 

 the poets, make no allusion to any of those marks by 

 which the Alexandrine Parrakeet is obviously distin- 

 guished : it is therefore probable that the Rose-ringed 

 species was that with which they were most familiar, 

 althou2:h the Alexandrine and one or two others must 

 have been also occasionally introduced. That the spe- 

 cies before us was extensively known, and held in high 

 estimation on account of the brilliancy of its plumage, 

 the docility of its manners, and its imitative powers of 

 voice, is proved by innumerable passages in the classical 

 writers, of Rome more especially, from the earliest times 

 of the empire to a very late period of its annals. It 

 seems also to have been the bird which was commonly 

 known to our ancestors under the name of Parrot or of 

 Popinjay, and is strikingly indicated by Skelton, in all 

 its most essential characters, in his singular poem enti- 

 tled " Speake Parrot," written in the reign of King 

 Henry the Eighth. It is an easily domesticated species, 

 and learns to talk with much fluency and distinctness. 



