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ANIMAL LIFE IN THE TROPICAL FORESTS 
293 
that, more than any others, they serve to give a special char- 
acter to equatorial ornithology. These are the Parrots, the 
Pigeons, and the Picarise, to each of which groups we will 
devote some attention. 
Parrots 
The parrots, forming the order Psittaci of naturalists, are 
a remarkable group of fruit- eating birds, of such high and 
peculiar organisation that they are often considered to stand 
at the head of the entire class. They are pre-eminently 
characteristic of the intertropical zone, being nowhere absent 
within its limits (except from absolutely desert regions), and 
they are generally so abundant and so conspicuous as to 
occupy among birds the place assigned to butterflies among 
insects. A few species range far into the temperate zones. 
One reaches Carolina in North America, another the Magellan 
Straits in South America ; in Africa they only extend a few 
degrees beyond the southern tropic ; in North-Western India 
they reach 35° north latitude, but in the Australian region 
they range farthest towards the pole, being found not only in 
New Zealand, but as far as the Macquarie islands in 54° 
south, where the climate is very cold and boisterous, but 
sufficiently uniform to supply vegetable food throughout the 
year. There is hardly any part of the equatorial zone in 
which the traveller will not soon have his attention called to 
some members of the parrot tribe. In Brazil the great blue 
and yellow or crimson macaws may be seen every evening 
wending their way homeward in pairs, almost as commonly 
as rooks with us, while innumerable parrots and parraquets 
attract attention by their harsh cries when disturbed from 
some favourite fruit-tree. In the Moluccas and New Guinea 
white cockatoos and gorgeous lories in crimson and blue are 
the very commonest of birds. 
No group of birds — perhaps no other group of animals — 
exhibits within the same limited number of genera and species 
so wide a range and such an endless variety of colour. As a 
rule, parrots may be termed green birds, the majority of the 
species having this colour as the basis of their plumage 
relieved by caps, gorgets, bands, and wing-spots of other and 
brighter hues. Yet this general green tint sometimes changes 
