PARROTS,. CUCKOOS, AND PLANTAIN-EATERS 93 
throughout the Australasian region, 
inclusive of Polynesia, and are highly 
esteemed as pets, combining great beauty 
with a very docile disposition and con- 
siderable talking powers. 
The birds of this section are also 
known as Brush-tongued Parrots, 
from the presence of a remarkable 
“ brush ” borne on the end of the tongue. 
This is a special adaptation, enabling the 
birds to feed upon honey; some, indeed, 
have this brush particularly well de- 
veloped, and are almost entirely honey- 
seekers, whilst others, wherein the brush 
is less developed, live largely on fruits. 
Professor Moseley tells us that honey 
literally poured from the mouths of 
Blue Mountain-lories which he shot 
at Cape York. 
The Cockatoos are abundant in the 
Australian region, but have their head- 
quarters in the Malay Archipelago. Besides the familiar white-crested form so commonly kept 
in England, the group includes an iron-grey coloured bird with a bright red head, and a huge 
black species, which represents the giant of the order. It is a funereal-looking bird, the largest 
specimens inhabiting New Guinea. One of its most striking features is the beak, which is 
of enormous size. Its tongue differs from that of other parrots in that it is slender and 
cylindrical in shape, and of a deep red colour, instead of thick, fleshy, and black. It frequents, 
Mr. Wallace tells us, the lower parts of the forest, feeding upon various fruits and seeds, but 
displaying a marked partiality for the kernel of the canary-nut, which grows on a lofty 
forest-tree; “and the manner in which it gets at these seeds,” writes Mr. Wallace, “ shows a 
correlation of structure and habits which would point to the canary as its special food. The 
shell of this nut is so excessively hard that only a heavy hammer will crack it ; it is some- 
what triangular, and the outside is quite smooth. The manner in which the bird opens these 
nuts is very curious. Taking one end-w'ays in its bill, and keeping it firm by a pressure of 
the tongue, it cuts a transverse notch by a lateral sawing motion of the sharp-edged lower 
mandible. This done, it takes hold of the nut with its foot, and, biting off a piece of leaf, 
retains it in the deep notch by the upper mandible, and again seizing the nut, which is 
prevented from slipping by the elastic tissue of the leaf, fixes the edge of the lower mandible 
in the notch, and a powerful rip breaks off a piece of the shell. Again taking the nut in its 
claws, it inserts the very long and sharp point of the bill, and picks out the kernel, which is 
seized hold of, morsel by morsel, by the extensile tongue.” 
Of the typical parrots, the best known is the common Grey African Parrot, with a red 
tail, so valued on account of its great talking pow'ers. Other species of this section which 
should be mentioned here are the PYGMY Parrots, Macaws, Hawk-billed Parrot, Budgeri- 
gars, and Owl-parrot. 
The first named are the smallest of all the tribe, remarkable as well for the splendour of 
the plumage as their size, which is less than that of the common sparrow. 
The Long-tailed Macaws, representing the most showy and gaudily coloured of all the 
Parrot Tribe, inhabit the tropical forests of South America. Mr. Bates describes a flock of 
scarlet-and-blue macaws, which he came across one day, as looking like a cluster of flaunting 
banners among the crown of dark green leaves of a bacaba-palm. 
The superb Hyacinthine Macaw is one of the rarest of the Parrot Tribe, and was found 
Photo by D. Le \_Melbourn8 , 
NEW ZEALAND KAKA 
The Maoris keep this bird as a lure 
7 
