by William Swainson

“ We have not yet had leisure to study the new divisions made in this family, with that attention they deserve; but it strikes us, as a defect in the genus Psittaculus, that it unites birds of the Old and the New World in one group. Except in their size, no two parrots can be more dissimilar in construction than the Indian P. vernalis, and the American P. passerinus. In the first, the under mandible is smallest, narrow, and rather pointed; the first quill longest; and the tail feathers rounded. In P. passerinus, the under mandible is largest, high, very thick, and quite obtuse ”