PARROTS AND COCKATOOS 



279 



Moluccas, the plumage of these birds is mainly red. Most of the pigmy parrots, of 

 which the largest is about equal to a bullfinch in size, while the smallest is no 

 bigger than a wren, are likewise natives of New Guinea and the neighbourino- 

 islands, although a few occur in northern Australia and the Philippines. In 

 Nasitema pygmoia, the length is only 3 inches, and it is but little more in the red- 

 capped N. bruijni. These pretty little birds are frequently called woodpecker- 

 parrots from the nature of their habits and the circumstance that the tips of the 

 tail-feathers extend like spines beyond the ends of the vanes. These parrots 

 climb like woodpeckers, and frequent certain fig-trees, which in New Guinea 

 produce their inflorescence on the stems. From these buds they suck honey ; and 

 while thus engaged support themselves by the tips of their tail-feathers like 

 woodpeckers, thereby rapidly wearing them out. The red-breasted N. ])ygmcea is 



pesquet's parrot. 



green above, with blackish edges to the feathers, the under-parts are light red, the 

 crown is yellowish with red-edged feathers on the forehead, while the middle 

 tail-feathers are blue, and the remainder black with yellow tips and green outer 

 edges. In addition to containing the smallest parrots of the Australasian region, 

 Papua is the home of one of the largest members of the group. This is the great 

 black cockatoo (Microglossias aterrimus), a bird indigenous to New Guinea and the 

 neighbouring islands, as well as to the north-east of Australia. In colour these 

 cockatoos are deep black, with naked red cheeks. They have large and powerful 

 compressed beaks, with which they are able to crack the hard kanary-nuts, on 

 which they subsist, whose kernels cannot be reached by any other birds. 

 Game-Birds As the megapodes, or brush-turkeys, which are spread all over 



and Pigeons, the Papuan province, have been alluded to at some length in the 

 preceding chapter, it will suffice to mention Freycinet's megapode (Megapodius 



