Plantain-eaters are found in pairs, or in small flocks of four to ten, over wooded country near inland or tidal waters, reaching an altitude of some ten thousand feet. The tops of high trees are a favourite haunt, but they are not uncommonly seen amongst the tangled creepers below, flitting from shrub to shrub with undulating flight when disturbed, and alighting with crest erect and up-turned tail. Of some species the flight is clumsy and jerky, of others light and graceful; at times they hover in the air with outspread wings and tail, at times they sport and hop among the branches, expanding and depressing the rectrices. Familiar yet extremely shy and restless, these birds, when wounded, are particularly hard to secure, as they run with great swiftness, and even take refuge in holes in trees. During rain or in the mid-day heat they rest quietly on some bough, but at other times are usually noisy, their harsh reiterated screaming or ringing notes being varied by a cat-like mewing or dove-like sound. The food consists of bananas, tamarinds, papaw-apples, and other fruits, with insects, worms, caterpillars, molluscs, or even small birds. They are occasionally mobbed by their kin, as Cuckoos are. Though some species have been asserted to breed in holes, Schizorhis concolor makes a flat nest in trees, and Gymnoschizorhis leopoldi a loose platform of thorny twigs and roots, both species laying three round greenish- or bluish-white eggs. The flesh is considered a delicacy by the natives.
Turacus (Corythaix) fischeri of East Africa is green, washed with blue on the wings and tail, having a crimson crest tipped with black, a crimson hind neck with white nape, a blackish lower chest and abdomen, and black cheeks margined above and below with white; the remiges are crimson, edged with black, the bare orbits red. T. corythaix is called the Lory in South Africa. Musophaga violacea of West Africa is glossy violet-blue with darker tail, the crown and hind-neck being covered with short, hairy, crimson feathers and partially outlined with white; the chest is greenish, the frontal plate yellow; the wing-quills and orbits are as in T. fischeri. Schizorhis concolor of South Africa is nearly uniform ash-coloured; Gymnoschizorhis personata of Shoa is greyish-brown with paler crest, whitish head and neck, blackish naked cheeks and throat, and dirty green breast.
The remarkable fossil Necrornis occurs in the Middle Miocene of France.
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Of all existing Birds the Parrots (Sub-Order Psittaci) are perhaps the most interesting to the public, being easily procurable, docile, and long-lived pets of gorgeous coloration and amusing habits. The red-tailed Grey Parrot of Africa (Psittacus erithacus) is considered the best talker, yet, apart from individual ability, many species of Palaeornis, Chrysotis, and other genera, are equally clever, if we cannot say intelligent. Professor Skeat identifies the name Parrot with the French Pierrot; but, however that may be, Indian species have been known in Europe since the time of Alexander the Great, and one or more African forms were kept in ornamental cages, and even eaten, at Rome under Nero.
In default of a really satisfactory arrangement we may accept that of Dr. Gadow,[[220]] who agrees in the main with Count Salvadori,[[221]] and recognises the Family Psittacidae, with Sub-families Stringopinae, Psittacinae, and Cacatuinae; and the Family Trichoglossidae, with Cyclopsittacinae, Loriinae, and Nestorinae.
There are in all about eighty genera containing some five hundred species, but the variety arises chiefly from colour, while the beak alone would sufficiently determine the Family. This feature is usually short and stout, with strongly arched maxilla and mandible, the former being moveable and hinged to the skull, and the latter truncated. In Nestor and Loriculus the curve is more gradual and the depth less; in the Cyclopsittacinae and some Psittacinae the bill is distinctly notched; in the Stringopinae, Nestorinae, and other Psittacinae it is grooved; while a file-like surface with transverse ridges, below the overhanging hooked tip, distinguishes the Psittacidae from the Trichoglossidae. At the base is generally a large swollen cere, or a similar but very narrow band in various Psittacinae; in the Platycercine group this is very small, and it is more or less hidden by feathers in certain Psittacinae, Cacatuinae, Cyclopsittacinae, and Nestorinae. The feet are permanently zygodactylous, the metatarsus being short–except in Ground-Parrots–compressed, and covered with rugose scales. The abbreviated rounded wings of the terrestrial Stringops, where the keel of the sternum is correspondingly reduced, are comparatively useless; while these members, though usually moderate, may be long, as in Nasiterna and Cacatua, or more acute, as in the Loriinae; the primaries are ten in number, the secondaries from eight to fourteen. The tail varies much, being short and square with projecting spiny shafts in Nasiterna, longer with acuminate feathers in Stringops, moderate in the Loriinae and Cyclopsittacinae, elongated and wedge-shaped in Conurus, Ara, Psittacula, and many species of Palaeornis, long and broad in Platycercus and Cacatua, and so forth. Oreopsittacus possesses fourteen rectrices, every other genus twelve; in Prioniturus the median pair have bare shafts and racquet-tips.
The U-shaped furcula is sometimes entirely absent; a completely ossified orbital ring occurs in the Cacatuinae, Stringopinae, and many Psittacinae; the tongue is short and fleshy, being fringed in the Nestorinae, or having a brush of hairs towards the tip in the Loriinae and Nanodes; the uniquely modified syrinx has three pairs of tracheal and tracheo-bronchial muscles; and a crop is present. The aftershaft is large, the down of the adults and young is uniform, the latter being naked when hatched.
Fig. 72.–Uvaean Parakeet. Nymphicus uvaeensis. × ½. (From Nature.)