X 
Introduction. 
families of .he Zygodaflyli .o which .hey have been aihed. If we excep. ,h« angle M of *. outer 
toe being' reversed, the foot itself differs materially in the small tubercle-hke scales wtth wh.ch ,t » 
covered from all the Insessores, not excluding the other families of the yoke-footed genera. Indeed 
the more we examine their affinities, their boldness, the contour of their beaks, wtth the margins 
toothed the nostrils placed in a cere, the more we shall be inclined to ally them with the 
falconidae, and, if such a term were admissible, call them “ vegetarian Raptores. - 
The most cursory glance shows that all the numerous genera of parrots are formed on one and 
the same sub-type, and this sub-type is a very clearly defined one, admitting of course an immense 
number of varying subordinate modifications, but in no case exhibiting any indications of passage or 
transition into another. The family is therefore an isolated one, and as such, and looking also at their 
wonderful docility and intelligence, together with the perfection of their organisation, we think at any 
rate that those ornithologists who separate the Pigeons from the Rasores, constituting them an order, 
and who consider that the Struthionidse should have such a primary division assigned to them, ought 
to consider this family an ordinal one, for certainly the points of difference which separate the 
Columbicke from the Rasores are not so numerous or important as those that separate the parrots from 
the other families of scansorial birds. 
But whether deemed an ordinal division, or a subdivision of the Scansoies, or a family of a tribe 
of the Insessores, no family can offer more scope for interesting investigation. With the exception of 
the honey-eaters it is the most numerous of the families of Australian birds, divided into at least 
seventeen genera, including fifty-nine—possibly sixty-one—species.. From north to south, from east 
to west, our plains, our woods, our river-banks, our shores, our homes, are rendered beautiiul and gay 
by these tulips of the bird world. 
This great island-continent, if we include Tasmania, lies between about the tenth and forty-fifth 
degrees of south latitude, and has therefore of course a great diversity of climate,—from the pleasant 
warm temperate clime of the southern colonies to the intense heat of the intertropical regions. The 
natural consequence of this is that great difference is found in our vegetable productions. In Victoria 
the ordinary summer fruits of England, with peaches and grapes, grow to rare perfection; in New 
South Wales wide orange groves perfume the air with richest fragrance, and the luscious fruit hangs 
in golden profusion, while the rivers of Queensland are fringed with the graceful banana, their rich 
alluvial banks wave with the sugar-cane, and pine-apples are grown like cabbages in fields. The 
natural flora of the country varies in the same way, for while trees from south to north are found 
partaking of the general type of eucalypti, each belt of country has its own special vegetation. The 
eastern coast line of New South Wales is adorned with the stately cabbage-tree palm (coryphee 
Atistralis ); the Lower Murray produces the myall (acacia pendula ) with its profusion of rich yellow 
flowers and violet-scented wood, and the quondong (fusanus ocuminatus), one of the few natural 
edible fruits of the land. The rich alluvial river lands of the Richmond, the Clarence, and their 
tributaries, grow the useful and beautiful red cedar, while Queensland has pines, towering figs, and 
stately palms, with all the luxuriant undergrowth of a tropical land. 
In all this varying, and in some respects remarkable, flora, there is a corresponding varying 
avifauna, and in that avifauna the various species of Psittacidae play their part, and in Nature’s 
wondrous adaptability are found of one type indeed, but modified in accordance with their geographical 
distribution. 
# J. G. Wood. Natural History of Birds. 
