ORDER SCANSORES. 559 



generic characters are strongly marked in every species be- 

 longing to it, and widely distinguished from those which are 

 peculiar to those of modern discovery. He considers them 

 perfectly identified with the Indian parrots, which are so 

 much in request among ourselves. The rose-coloured collar, 

 the emerald body, and the ruby bill, which mark these birds, 

 have been very distinctly described, by several writers of 

 antiquity. 



We have now to treat of the habits and manners of these 

 singular birds, which merit, without contradiction, to be 

 placed at the head of the feathered race, on the score of in- 

 telligence. We shall first notice their peculiar modes of 

 locomotion. 



The parrots, as we have said before, are eminently climb- 

 ing birds, as the form, the arrangement, and the strength of 

 their toes clearly evince. When they walk on the ground, it 

 is with a slowness, which is owing to a vacillating motion of 

 the body, occasioned by the shortness and separation of their 

 feet, in which the base of sustentation is very wide. They 

 frequently place the point or upper part of their bill on the 

 ground, which thus serves them as a point of support. In 

 climbing, its hooked form is still more useful to them ; and 

 often when they hold any object in this bill, they rest upon 

 the branches by the under part of their lower mandible. 

 When they descend, they sustain themselves by the upper. 

 This is a common habit with the majority of the parrot-tribe. 

 Still, there are some species, which, having more elevated 

 legs, toes less long and less crooked, can walk on the ground 

 with tolerable swiftness, and which never perch. These have 

 been formed by Illiger into a separate genus under the name of 

 Pexoporus. Others, again, have the tarsi short and flat, on 

 which they rest in walking. 



The wings of the parrots being generally short, and their 

 bodies bulky, they have some difficulty in rising to a certain 

 point of elevation. But that once attained, they fly very 



