600 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



Scansores. another perch, and began to strip off its feathers. When 

 it was nearly naked, it broke the bones of the wings and 

 legs, taking them in its bill, and giving them a strong la- 

 teral wrench. Having reduced the little victim to a shape- 

 less mass, it first swallowed the viscera, and then the re- 

 maining parts, piece after piece, not even rejecting the 

 legs and bill. Mr Broderip adds, that he has sometimes 

 observed it return its food from its crop, and swallow it 

 again, after a second mastication. 



The genus Psittacus, Linn., comprehending the almost 

 innumerable tribe of parrots, lories, parrakeets, maccaws, 

 and cockatoos, has the bill thick, hard, solid, rather short, 

 rounded on all its outlines, deep, curved, and generally 

 sharp-pointed. The tongue is almost always thick, round, 

 and fleshy, and the lower larynx furnished on each side 

 with three peculiar muscles, which probably contribute to 

 the great facility with which these birds acquire the arti- 

 culate intonation of the human voice. Their strong and 

 powerful jaws are brought into action by muscles more 

 numerous than usual. Their natural food consists of fruits 

 and seeds. They climb trees with the greatest facility, 

 and suspend themselves indifferently from feet or bill. 

 Their voices are harsh and discordant, their forms often 

 elegant, their plumage usually of great richness. They 

 form indeed a magnificent family, abundant in almost 

 every region of the torrid zone, and in the new world ex- 

 tending from the shores of the Ohio to the Straits of Ma- 

 gellan, — thus presenting a vast and varied assemblage of 

 species from every country of the world, excepting the 

 comparatively cold and cloudy clime of Europe. The gor- 

 geous maccaws are characteristic of South America, the 

 cockatoos of New Holland and the Asiatic islands, the 

 lories of the East Indies and the Moluccas; whilst several 

 groups of parrots, parrakeets, &c. are widely distributed 

 over various regions of the earth. Above two hundred 

 different kinds are known to naturalists. 



It was the opinion of Buffon that none of the parrot 

 tribe extended either northwards or southwards beyond 

 the twenty-fifth degree, on either side of the equator. 

 Having apparently resolved, a priori, on these lines of cir- 

 cumvallation, he despised, as Pennant observed, the au- 

 thority of the Dutch navigator Spilbergen, who was eye- 

 witness to the woods of Terra del Fuego, the very south- 

 ern boundary of the Straits of Magellan, in south latitude 

 44°, being full of them. He might also have cited the evi- 

 dence of Captain Hood, who saw a parrot at Port Famine ; 

 and of Commodore Byron, who notwithstanding the cold- 

 ness of the climate observed parrots innumerable in the 

 woods of that same harbour. They were found by Captain 

 Cook in New Zealand, by Captain Furneaux at Van Die- 

 men's Land, and by the learned Forster in the raw wet cli- 

 mate of Dusky Bay. The emerald parrot, Psit. smaragdinus, 

 Gmel., was lately seen in great numbers by Captain King, 

 among thick underwood, in the Straits of Magellan, south 

 latitude 53^° ; and others are well known to occur in Mac- 

 quarrie Island, which lies in latitude 54^° south. A spe- 

 cies inhabits North America, extending even beyond the 

 Illinois River to the neighbourhood of Lake Michigan, in 

 the forty-second degree of north latitude. It was seen by 

 Alexander Wilson in the month of February, flying in 

 flocks along the banks of the Ohio, during a storm of snow, 

 and yet in full rejoicing cry. These, and many similar facts, 

 are now well known to naturalists. 



The modern subdivisions of this great natural family 

 are too numerous and minute to be here recorded. 1 We 

 must therefore satisfy ourselves with a brief indication of 

 the principal groups. We presume nobody at this time 

 of day, under the pretence of popular reading, desires to 



be edified by anecdotes of parrots, so we shall devote the Scansm-os. 

 little space we can afford for miscellaneous matters, to'— "~^~— > 

 a i'ew notices of some of the species which have bred in 

 Europe. Of these we may here mention, as the prin- 

 cipal, the great blue and buff maccaw (P. ararauna) ; the 

 gray parrot (P. erythucus) ; the sinciale, ring-necked, and 

 pavouan parrakeets (P. sincialo, torquatus, Guianensis) ; 

 and the black-capped or Philippine lory (P. tricolor). 

 The general belief is that the parrot tribe will not breed 

 in Europe ; but knowing several instances to the contrary, 

 we wish to impress upon the public the probability that 

 many more would occur were the experiment tried with 

 frequency and judgment. 



The gorgeous maccaws form the genus Macrocercus of 

 Vieillot. The face is either naked, or merely striped with 

 feathery lines. The tail is very long, wedge-shaped, and 

 sharp-pointed. (Plate CCCXCVII. fig. 1.) These birds, the 

 largest and most magnificent of the parrot tribe, inhabit 

 South America. The great scarlet maccaw (Psittacus ara- 

 canga, Lath.), when in perfect plumage, sometimes mea- 

 sures above three feet in length, the tail of course included. 

 The prevailing plumage is scarlet, as its name implies, the 

 wings blue, the wing-coverts varied with yellow, the cheeks 

 white and wrinkled. It is certainly a sumptuous creature, 

 but after all rather too like a richly liveried footman, — an 

 association somewhat strengthened by its being so often seen 

 as an inhabitant of lordly mansions, and surrounded by other 

 menial bipeds, almost as gorgeous as itself. Our feelings 

 would no doubt have been different had we ever witnessed 

 their natural evolutions. " It is a grand sight in Ornitho- 

 logy," says Waterton, " to see thousands of aras flying 

 over your head, low enough to let you have a full view of 

 their flaming mantle." How delightful would it have been, 

 on some bright and dewy morning, to have accompanied 

 Lord Anson to view a magnificent rapid in the island of 

 Quibo. A fine river of transparent water there precipi- 

 tates itself along a rocky channel, forming numerous falls, 

 and the great disrupted rocks which form its boundary on 

 either side are crowned with lofty forest trees. " While 

 the commodore and those who were with him attentively 

 viewing the place, were remarking the different blendings 

 of the waters, the rocks, and the woods, there came in 

 sight as it were still more to heighten and animate the 

 prospect, a prodigious flight of maccaws, which hovering 

 over this spot, and often whirling and playing on the wing 

 about it, afforded a most brilliant appearance by the glit- 

 tering of the sun upon their varied plumage ; so that some 

 of the spectators cannot refrain from a kind of transport 

 when they recount the complicated beauties which oc- 

 curred at this extraordinary water-fall." The blue and 

 yellow species (P. ararauna, Linn.) is little inferior to the 

 preceding, either in size or sumptuousness. It is less com- 

 mon, and seems to have been first described by Aldrovan- 

 dus, from a specimen which he saw in the palace of the 

 Duke of Mantua. It is said to be also less easily reclaim- 

 ed as a domestic bird, — yet we have not seldom enjoyed 

 the society of a very fine example which makes its way 

 familiarly (such is its custom in the afternoon) amid the 

 varied horticultural produce which graces the dessert of Dr 

 Neill. Many other splendid species are described and 

 figured in the works of naturalists. 



In the genus Aratinga of Spix, the bill is slender, 

 dentated ; the orbits of the eyes naked, the cheeks rarely 

 so ; the tail lengthened, wedge-shaped, the intermediate 

 feathers prolonged. The species are peculiar to the new 

 world. Such are Ar. Carolince-Augustm, chrysocephalus, 

 &c. To these the genus Psittacara of Vigors seems 

 allied, the bill, however, being shorter and stouter, and 



_ ' The most complete and scientific treatises with which we are acquainted on the parrot tribe axe,— Conspectus Psittacorum, ah H. 

 Kuhl, Ph. Dr. &c. in Nova Acta Acad. J\'at. Cur. torn. x. p. 1 ; and Wagler's Monographia Psittacorum. 



