916 THE TOWER MENAGERIE. 
which evince the highest degree of intelligence, in the 
imitation especially of the human voice, for which they 
have been celebrated from the earliest times. 
The beautiful bird, the portrait of which is prefixed to 
the present article, is one of the rarest of its tribe, and 
has until very lately been confounded by ornithologists 
with the Hyacinthine Macaw, a fine but much less 
splendid species. It is figured by M. Spix in his 
Brazilian Birds under the name which we have adopted; 
but is there given without either characters or descrip- 
tion. Its claim to generic distinction would seem to 
depend on the excessive length and powerful curvature 
of its claws and upper mandible, and on the slight 
developement of the toothlike process of the latter. Its 
colour is throughout of a deep and brilliant blue; the 
beak, legs, and claws, are black; and the cere and a 
naked circle round each of the eyes are of a bright 
yellow. Our specimen measures two feet four inches 
from the top of the head to the extremity of the tail, and 
the expansion of his wings is four feet. The length of 
the upper mandible is five inches, and that of the lower, 
two. 
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