326 Timehri. 



beginning more and more strongly to deny. Many facts that seem a,t the 

 outset to lead to evolution are like blind alleys ; they go a certain way in 

 the right direction and then suddenly terminate in a blank wall. Buskin 

 approaching the subject in a rhetorical rather than a scientific mood, 

 writes : " Had Darwinism been true, we should long ago have split our 

 heads in two with foolish thinking, or thrust out from above our 

 covetous hearts, a hundred desirous arms and clutching hands and 

 changed ourselves into Briarean cephalopods ..." He is in a more 

 scientific temper when, writing of the supposed evolution of the peacock's 

 tail, he says, " I went to it myself, hoping to learn some of the existing 

 laws of life which regulate the local disposition of colour. But none of 

 these appear to be known ; and I am informed only that peacocks have 

 grown out of brown pheasants because the young feminine brown 

 pheasants like fine feathers. Whereupon I say to myself " then either 

 there was a distinct species of brow T n pheasants originally born with a 

 taste for fine feathers : and therefore with remarkable eyes in their heads. 

 — which would be a much more wonderful distinction of species than 

 being born with remarkable eyes in their tails. — or else all pheasants 

 would have been peacocks by this time ! " 



Much as scientists condemn the a priori reasoning of scholastic 

 theologians, they instinctively fall into it themselves. For example, 

 they would say that the parrot has obtained its movable maxilla by 

 the continuous use of it as a climbing instrument, because, a priori 

 this would be in accordance with their theory of evolution. But it is 

 equally reasonable to argue, on the contrary, that the pai-rot having 

 been endowed by nature with this most useful adjunct to its claws, 

 immediately proceeded to give it its appropriate employment. 



Parrots are the only birds that have conceived the bright idea of 

 using their foot as a hand. Hawks, indeed, hold their victims with their 

 feet while they tear them to pieces ; yellow-backs and birds of that class, 

 will hold a morsel of food beneath a foot that they may eat it piece- 

 meal ; and even grass birds will so hold an ear of grass while they pec't 

 out the seeds ; but only parrots use a foot to convey food to the mouth. 

 When I was in India I had a paroquet that, planting itself firmly on its 

 left foot, would, after the manner of an East Indian, gesticulate with 

 its right, while it poured forth a torrent of imaginary eloquence ! 



But to return to our immediate subject. 



As I am following no definitely scientific order in these papers, I 

 may begin with the Love-bird. 



The Love Bird. 

 Only one species of this charming family is to be found in the 

 Colony ; but it is common in certain localities and has been seen about 

 Georgetown, This, Psittacida Guianensis, is of a uniform pea-green 

 colour, lighter below. It is hardly five inches in length, the tail 

 extending but little beyond the wings. The under-wing coverts of the 



