576 Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa. 
Pyrrhnrinae respectively, they both branching dichotomously in an exactly 
similar manner, the former giving rise to the Stringopinae and the especi- 
ally modified Cacatua cristata and C. sulphurea, the other to the similarly 
modified Platycercinae and Chrysotinae.'' * In another place G-arrod stated 
that " the presence of a gall-bladder in the Cacatidnae will have to be in- 
cluded among the charactei'istic peculiarities of this sub-family. At the 
same time its persistence in them is in favour of the view that the Palaeor- 
7iithinae, as restricted by me, are but little different from the ancestral 
parrots, and the Cacatuinae still less so. The j^rimitive parrots must have 
possessed a gall-bladder, because we know that this organ is present in the 
Cacatuinae, and consequently was not absent in the primitive species, as the 
probability that it should have been independently developed a second time 
is infinitely little." f 
Late in the autumn of 1914 Mr, Edward S. Sclimid, of Washington, 
D.C., presented me with a specimen of a parrot that had died in captivity, 
the history of which was not known to him. Before removing the skin of 
this bird, I made, by the aid of my camera and tints, the figure here re- 
produced in Plate XXXIX, which is exactly half natural size. No notes were 
made upon the soft parts, while upon the other hand I obtained a perfect 
skeleton for description. 
Not being sure of the species, I took the skin to Mr. J. H. Riley, of the 
Division of Birds of the U.S. National Museum, for examination, and from 
him 1 received, in a day or so, the following letter, for which he has my 
sincere thanks. It is dated at the Smithsonian Institution, November 5, 
1914, and the essential part of it reads as follows : " The parrot left by you 
to be identified is either Palaeornis torquata or Palaeornis docilis. These 
two species are practically identical in plumage, and only differ in size, 
P. docilis being slightly smaller. As the skin left by you lacks the bill and 
the wing bones have been taken out, it is hard to tell with any certainty to 
which species to assign it, but am inclined to place it with P. docilis. 
P. torquata is Indian and Malayan, while P. docilis is typical African in 
distribution." % I may say that the superior mandible in the specimen was 
* G-arrod, A, H. : " On Some Points in the Anatomy of the Parrots Avhich bear on 
the Classification of the Suborder." P.Z.S., 1874, pp. 586-598, Plates LXX and LXXI. 
The part quoted occurs on p. 595. 
t Garrod, A. H. : "Note on the Absence or Presence of a Gall-Bladder in the 
Family of the Parrots." P.Z.S., 1877, p. 793. 
% Newton, in the article "Parrot" in the Ninth Edition of the "Encyclopaedia 
Britannica" (vol. xviii, p. 322), says, in a footnote, that "It is right to state, how- 
ever, that the African examples of this bird are said to be distinguishable from the 
Asiatic by their somewhat shorter wings and Aveaker bill, and hence they are con- 
sidered by some authorities to form a distinct species or subspecies, P. docilis ; but in 
thus regarding them the difference of locality seems to have influenced opinion, and 
without that difference they would scarcely have been separated, for in many other 
groups of birds distinctions so slight are regarded as barely evidence of local races." 
