106 BULLETIN 50, UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM. 



Family PSITTAOID^. 



TYPICAL PARROTS. 



>Psittaddx Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., i, 1850, 1 (includes Loriidas and Caca- 

 toidse).— Beddard, Struct, and Classif. Birds, 1898, 269 (includes Nestoridse). 



=Psittaeidss Salvadori, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xx, 1891, 137.— Sharps, Rev. 

 Rec. At. Classif. Birds, 1891, 83; Hand-list, ii, 1900, 12— Salvin and God- 

 man, Biol. Centr.-Am., Aves, ii, 1897, 563. 



<Plyctolophinae Bonaparte, Consp. Gen. Av., i, 1850, 6 (genera Ncmtermz, 

 Mascarinus and Coracopsis). 



=Psittacinae Gadow, Bronn's Thier-Reichs, Vog., ii, 1893, 222. 



Psittaci having the anterior palatal surface of the maxilla dis- 

 tinctly grooved, transversely or obliquely, in two parallel lateral 

 series, producing a file-like corrugation; the tongue without fringed 

 or brush-like processes; the orbital ring incomplete, or if complete 

 without a process bridging the temporal fossa; sternum with the keel 

 normally developed. 



As has already been remarked by Count Salvadori," "it is ex- 

 tremely difficult to define the Psittacidae by positive characters. 

 They are separated from the Stringopidae by having a complete 

 sternum, from the Nestoridas, Loriidas, and Cyclopsittacidse by the 

 file-like surface of the palatine portion of the hook of the bill, and 

 from the Cacatuidae by the absence of a crest (except in Nymphi- 

 cus)." 



The Psittacidae occur throughout the tropical and most of the sub- 

 tropical portions of both hemispheres, though wanting in certain 

 remote island groups (such as the Galapagos and Hawaiian archi- 

 pelagos). They are the only Psittaci found in America or in Africa; 

 in the south-eastern portion of the Indo-Malayan or Oriental Region 

 they come in contact with members of the Cacatoidae, while Jn the 

 Australian Region they are associated with all the other families of 

 the suborder. 



The species of Psittacidae are very numerous, more than four hun- 

 dred and twenty, referred to fifty-seven genera, being known at the 

 time Count Salvadori's monograph was published (1891), of which 

 number, however, only sixteen genera and one hundred and twenty- 

 two species are American. Of the latter considerably less than half 

 the species are represented in the geographic area of the present 

 work, though three-fourths of the -genera are represented. 



Since only two of the six subfamilies of Psittacidae recognized by 

 Count Salvadori are represented in America, it seems desirable, in 

 order to give a better understanding of their characters and rela- 

 tionships, to reproduce (with slight modifications) the key to the sub- 

 families given in the Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum 

 (xx, 1891, 137). 



<* Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., xx, 1891, 137. 



