PSITTACI. 317 



structed, being provided with three special pairs of 

 muscles. 



As to their food habits, the birds may be called the 

 frugivorous raptores; and in some respects, they resemble 

 monkeys among mammals. Parrots abound in all the 

 tropical countries. But the Indian and the Ethiopian 

 regions are poor in parrots, indeed the poorest; while 



I Fig. III. — Zygodactyle foot of a parrot. 



the Australasian region has the greatest number of them 

 and perhaps the most species. The parrots which are 

 generally put on sale in the United States are Mexican or 

 Cuban, or rarely South American parrots. In their 

 native haunts, they cannot talk, but are as silent as any 

 wild birds may be, even more so, for their few notes are 

 shrill or harsh, and not to be called singing in any degree; 

 nor do they give a hint of the capacity with which cultiva- 

 tion may endow them. 



