PARROT (probably from Fr. Pierrot, diminutive of Picric, Peter). A bird of the group Psittaci. which is related to the cuckoos and plantain-eaters, and includes two families, the Psittacilke and Trichoglossithe, together number ing about 500 species. Most of them are natives of the tropics, and especially of the Australian and Malayan regions. and about 100 species occur in New Guinea alone. South Ameriea has about 150 Species. and Africa and Southern Asia the remainder. Few inhabit or even enter the temperate zone, the most northerly one, perhaps, being the now nearly extinct ( arolina parrakeet. (q.y.) of the United States. The determining feature in the family is the beak, which i. short. stout., and greatly arched. the upper mandible hooking over the lower, and moNablv hinged to the skull. Tlit feet are short .111:1 strong-, and the toes are two before and two behind. The wings are likely to he rather short and in some groups rounded; and the tail may be short and broad as in the true parrots. or very long and pointed, as in the parrakeets, noticeably broad in others, and so on. .Most parrots gaudily colored, but souse are soberly clad: and there is likely to be a crest—very prominent in the cockatoos and less so in some others—or other modifications of the feathers of the head, as in the facial disks of the owl-parrots or kakapo. (q.v.). The sexes are usually much alike.
Most parrots are forestddrds, although :1 few are of terrestrial habits and are v parrots. and a few like the grass parrakeets, inhabit grassy or brushy plains. As a rule, also, they are gregarious. and many species go in large flocks. Their food with few exceptions is vegetable—plantains, papaW apples, figs, and tamarinds being varied by flow ers, buds, leaves, palm-nuts, and other hard fruits, grass-seeds, and grain. This supplies -0 much moisture that little drinking seem: neces sary. Exceptional foods are the bulbs and tubers for which cockatoos dig, while cies search the bark of trees for insects.or extract honey and insects from flowers with their brush tipped tongues. (See Lonv.) Lastly, the kaki' (q.v.) has acquired a taste for flesh. They gather this food by climbing about the branehes like the nimblest of acrobats, using their beaks freely in support. of their bodies, and manipulating
their food with their claws as no other bird ever does.
The voices of parrots as a rule are harsh. :111.1 the great macaws and cockatoos servant nn st discordantly. Some, however. utter low- an 1 sweet twittering notes. 1\lany have great facility in imitating other or human slieeeli, and some learn to articulate words and phrases with 111111'11 distinctness. if given patient training. There is a popular notion that this rm....A may be aided by slitting the tongue—a practice as Useless and foolish as it is barbarous. It is certain that the tongue has anything more to do with the enunciation of ill case of other birds, where it plays no part in utterance. The tongue is always large. round. and fleshy. In the subfamily Nestorime (the kaka;) it is fringed: and in lories it has a brush of hairs toward the tip.
The typival, and perhaps the best-known, par rot is the Afrivan gray parrot ( Psi! lactis (Tit/welts) of equatorial Africa, which is ashy gray. with black wing-quills, a red tail. and whitish, naked face. It is in high esteem :nuong most of the African tribes. who rear it from the nest as a house pet, enjoy its flesh, and seek its feathers as Ormlincllts. some sitting apart the red tail feathers for their chiefs as insignia of rank. Long, ago these parrots were carried to Europe, and afterwards to all parts of the world. and have shown themselves n.It only hardy, 10n2-lived. and affectionate, but the clear est talker; of the whole tribe. A but much darker West .1frican :peeks is unable to talk at all. In their native wilds these par rots go about in flocks during the day, and return at night to certain 'roosts.' They eat various fruits and nuts, especially palm-ants. They breed in holes in trees, often in companies, and aid one another in defending their homes. All parrots nest in holes in trees except a few aberrant ones, like some in New Zealand. which lay their ems in holes or hollows of the ground or among rocks. All lay white eggs. Fossil representa tives of this tribe carry its history back to the Lower Miocene Age.