ASH-COLOURED OR GREY PARROT. 
129 
meat. When feeding, it often holds its food clasped in 
the foot, and, before swallowing, masticates or re- 
duces it to small pieces by its powerful bill and pa- 
latial cutters. This member, so unlike that of other 
frugivorous birds, is admirably calculated for the 
principal offices it has to perform, viz. breaking the 
shells of the hardest fruits and seeds, and as a 
strong and powerful organ of prehension and sup- 
port ; for few of our readers but must have observed 
that the bill is always first used, and chiefly depend- 
ed upon when a Parrot is caged, in climbing or 
moving from cne position to another. The longe- 
vity of the feathered race, we believe, in general far 
exceeds what is commonly supposed, at least if we 
may judge from the age attained by various birds, 
even when subjected to captivity and confinement. 
Tlius, we have instances of eagles living for half a 
century : the same of ravens, geese, and other large 
birds, as well as among the smaller kinds usually kept 
caged. The Parrot appears to yield to none of these, 
and several instances are upon record of their having 
reached the remarkable age of sixty or seventy years. 
Among these, none is more interesting than that of an 
individual mentioned by M. Le Vaillant, which had 
lived in a state of domesticity for no less than ninety- 
three years. At the time that eminent naturalist sa\y 
it, it was in a state of entire decrepitude, and in a 
kind of lethargic condition, its sight and memory 
being both gone, and was fed at intervals with bis- 
cuit soaked in Madeira wine. In the time of its 
I 
