INTRODUCTION. XXI 



devoid of such appendages, yet in the Nestors there is a delicate fringe of hairs at the tip, 

 but these are quite different* from the elongated lateral papillae of the Loriidce. In Nanodes 

 discolor, however, the tongue is again brush-like in structure f, yet not like that of the 

 Lories. Nanodes is a Parrot from Australia and Tasmania which belongs to the subfamily 

 Platycercince of the Psittacidce — a subfamily in all the other species of which the tongue 

 is, in all known instances, simple. 



The head of no Lory is decorated with a crest such as characterizes the family Cacatiddce, 

 though sometimes the feathers of the crown, or of the hinder part of the head, or of the 

 nape, are more or less elongated. 



The wing is acute in shape and almost always longer than the tail, though it may but 

 equal it or may even be but half the length of the tail's longest feathers. 



It is the first three quills which are generally the longest, and sometimes the first is the 

 longest of all. Often the first four or five primaries are distinctly attenuated towards their 

 tips, and they may be abruptly so, or they may be notched at the tip. 



The tail has but twelve feathers, which is the number in all Parrots which are not Lories. 

 In one genus of the Loriidce, however (Oreopsittacus), there are fourteen tail-feathers. 



As to its shape, it may be rather short and nearly square, with the two middle feathers 

 shorter than the lateral ones. It may, on the contrary, though very rarely, have the 

 two middle feathers very much longer than the lateral ones, but they are almost always 

 somewhat longer than are the latter. The feathers of the tail may be broad and rounded 

 at the tip, or they may taper to a more or less acute point ; they are very often graduated 

 and tapering, but the tail may be rounded. 



The shafts of the feathers are never pointed and projecting beyond the web as in the 

 Nestors. The tail is almost always shorter than the wing, but in very rare instances it 

 attains about twice the length of the latter. An oil-gland is present. 



As to internal structure, little can be predicated of the family Loriidce as distinctive 

 from other families of the Psittaci. 



As regards the skeleton, what appears to be (so far as yet ascertained) their most 

 interesting character concerns the bones of the tongue — the os hyoides. 



The Lories, of course, present marked skeletal differences from various exceptional 

 forms of Psittaci (such, e. g., as Microglossia aterrimus, Macaws, and others), but from the 

 more typical forms the divergences are small. 



"We have compared, as carefully as we could, the skeleton of a typical Lory — that of 

 Lorins jluvopalliatus — with that of the type of all the other Parrots, namely Psittacus 

 erithacus J. 



Photographic reproductions of the skeletons of Eos cyanogenys, Lorius lory, Lor his 



* See Garrod, loe. cit. p. 115, figs. 2 & 3. 



t Its papillae are blunter and shorter. That this bird is not one of the Loriidce has been well shown by the late 

 Mr. Forbes : see P. Z. S. 1879, pp. 166-174, pi. xvi. 



% See Proc. Zool. Soc. for 1895, pp. 162, 312, & 363. It is from the illustrations therein given that those in our 

 present Introduction have, by kind permission, been reproduced. 



