Birds Parrots 
green—the bill red—and the males have a pink ring 
around the neck, with a black patch in front. These 
live in the open ground around the villages, and 
perch upon the roofs of the houses and temples; 
they gather in great flocks at sunset, and perch at 
night in the trees. Kipling thus describes them: 
“Dim dawn behind the tamarisks, the sky is saffron yellow, 
As the women in the village grind the corn, ; 
And the parrots seek the river-side, each calling to his fellow 
That the Day, the staring Eastern Day, is born.” 
In Australia and surrounding islands occur the 
broad-tailed parrots, among them the ‘‘Rosella’’, or 
“Pretty Joey.’’ This bird is a little more than a foot 
long; it has a scarlet breast, is yellowish green above, 
has wings dark blue and a blue tail with two central 
green feathers; it is one of the most brilliant of its 
family. 
In New Zealand is the kakapo, or owl-parrot, 
which lives on the ground and remains hidden all 
day, coming out at night to feed. In India, the 
Philippines and the islands of the Malay Archipelago, 
are the queer little bat-parrots, or lorikeets; scarce- 
ly more than six inches in length, and with rainbow 
plumage, of green, scarlet, blue and yellow. The 
beaks of the lorikeets are not hooked, but are slender 
and fitted for extracting the nectar from flowers like 
the beaks of humming-birds. The lorikeets sleep 
hanging with the head downward, and feet safely 
clasping the branch, and thus they earned the name 
of ‘‘bat-parrots.” 
There are a great variety of nests built by parrots. 
The Argentine green parrakeet builds at the extremi- 
ty of branches which it weaves closely together. The 
macaws build in holes in trees, especially the wild fig 
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