96 
GUIDE TO THE 
Blossom-headed Parrot, and P. torquatus , the Ring-necked 
Parrot, both of which can be taught to speak with great 
fluency. The group is characterized by the absence of a 
crest, and by the presence of long tail feathers. The genus 
PalcBornis extends to Africa, and the group is represented 
in the New World by the true Conures of which some 
examples are generally shown in this house. The term 
Parrakeet is occasionally applied to the foregoing Indian 
birds, but the Parrakeets proper are essentially Aus¬ 
tralian, only one genus being found in America. 
In the second division of the Parrots, the Straight-bills, 
there is scarcely any indentation of the bill, the tip 
being nearly straight, and the tongue is pencilled or 
provided with a brush at its extremity, hence the term 
Trichoglossi is applied to them. They have also a peculiar 
odour, foetid in some, but musky in others, and not un¬ 
pleasant. The brush-tongues, with the exception of the 
genus Loriculus which occurs in India and in the Indo- 
Malayan regions, are inhabitants of the Australian con¬ 
tinent, the Molucca islands, New Zealand, and the islands 
of Polynesia. One of the birds classed along with the 
brush-tongues is that remarkable New Zealand parrot, the 
“ Kea,” Nestor notabilis , which is the only known instance 
of a parrot in its wild state eating flesh. Those near 
the sheep stations appear to live almost exclusively on 
mutton, claiming the sheeps’ heads that are thrown out 
from the slaughter-sheds, and picking them perfectly clean. 
About the middle of the south-eastern division of this 
house, and on its southern side there is a large cage 
devoted to Pythons. The seeming incongruity of having 
snakes exhibited in the same house with birds is here 
overcome by the circumstance that the cages generally 
