In some specimens, the patch of bright scarlet in the centre of the wing, is diminished to a slight tinge on the edge, or even entirely wanting. This is not a difference of sex, but probably of age.
I cannot well identify our Black-bill with Latham’s “Jamaica Black-billed Green Parrot;” he calls it var. α of Æstivus, which it surely is not; var. δ agrees in other particulars. Ours seems, as it were, made up of both descriptions.
YELLOW-BILLED PARROT.[77]
Psittacus leucocephalus.
| Psittacus leucocephalus, | Linn.—Pl. Enl. 549. |
| Psittacus collarius, (young?) | Ibid. |
[77] Length 13½ inches, expanse 22¾, flexure 7¼, tail 4²⁄₁₀, rictus 1, tarsus ⁸⁄₁₀, middle toe 1⁶⁄₁₀. Irides dark hazel; cere and eyelids greyish-white. Sexes exactly alike.
The Yellow-bill is less common than either of the only two preceding, but its habits are the same. The same fruits supply it with food, but in addition, it divides the oranges, to procure the pips, and even cuts the acrid cashew-nut, to extract the kernel; which the others will not do.
The present and the preceding species build in holes in lofty trees; often a hollow bread-nut is chosen, and often the capacious and comfortable cavity chiselled out by the Woodpecker. Four eggs are usually laid; and when the green feathers begin to clothe the callow heads of the promising family, they are too often taken by some daring youth, who having watched the parent to her hole, climbs the giddy elevation. He feeds the young with ripe plantain or banana, till they approach maturity, and their appetites can digest plainer food; for when grown they will eat almost anything.
All the three species learn to speak, but the Parroquet is barely intelligible; the Black-bill is the most docile, but the beauty and superior size of the Yellow-bill causes it to be preferred for the cage. One in full plumage, and able to articulate with distinctness, usually fetches about twenty shillings in the towns.