Parapet

“ They are surrounded by low parapets; and from each well extend long troughs of brick and cement, into which the water drawn from the well is conducted by channels, for the use of the horses and other cattle belonging to the artillery or cavalry. The low parapets round the wells are sufficient protection, at all events in the daytime ”

“ Across the aisle from them there was a parrot—a great green and red parrot that at that moment was hanging by its claws to the roof of its cage and was still emitting the raucous squawks that sounded like the talking of a hundred pirates all rolled into one.
An elderly woman who looked as if she might be a spinster of the type generally known as “old maid” was doing her best to silence the bird while she fished wildly in her bag for something. ”

“ The parakeet ducked into encircling fingers, Osterbridge Hawsey let out a piercing scream, more of rage than of pain, and opened his hand. The parakeet, liberated, flew straight into the face of the man with the whip, pecking at it with its sharp beak, scratching at it with his pin-like claws, and beating its wings in such confusing fury that the pirate bobbed his head. At the same time the big man stepped backward, throwing up his left arm in an attempt either to catch the bird or drive it off. ”

“ When wounded and laid hold of, the Parakeet opens its bill, turns its head to seize and bite, and, if it succeed, is capable of inflicting a severe wound. It is easily tamed by being frequently immersed in water, and eats as soon as it is placed in confinement. Nature seems to have implanted in these birds a propensity to destroy, in consequence of which they cut to atoms pieces of wood, books, and, in short, every thing that comes in their way. They are incapable of articulating words, however much care and attention may be bestowed upon their education ”

“ On reaching a spot which affords a supply of food, instead of alighting at once, as many other birds do, the Parakeets take a good survey of the neighbourhood, passing over it in circles of great extent, first above the trees, and then gradually lowering until they almost touch the ground, when suddenly re-ascending they all settle on the tree that bears the fruit of which they are in quest, or on one close to the field in which they expect to regale themselves. ”

“ P. eupatria, the Rose-banded Parakeet or Alexandrine, and P. torquata, the Rose-ringed Parakeet, are similar species from the Indian Region; they are green, with rose-coloured nuchal collar, black neck-stripes, bluish median and yellow and green lateral rectrices, all tipped with yellow, and in the former a red wing-patch. The female shews no pink or black. These birds frequent both hills and plains, being often found in societies; they have a loud musical note, feed on fruits and grain, and lay some four eggs on the chips in a hole cut out by themselves. ”

“ The bright, blue cheeks, forehead, and shoulder, red abdomen, and light yellow base to tail present a striking appearance. Its vernacular name—Yellow-vented Parrakeet—has now been altered to Blue Bonnet Parrot.
The Many-colored Parrot, with its large yellow shoulder patch, is a glory. It is, indeed, difficult to imagine a more beautiful bird as it flies about in the bright Mallee sunshine. The Red-backed Parrot is the common "Grass Parrot" of country dwellers. Large flocks of these birds are to be seen on the inland plains. The female is much plainer than her gaudy mate. ”

“ Perhaps it was the feeling of surprise experienced by the animal at the peacock continually displaying its gorgeous tail, which induced it to follow the bird up and down the garden, and eventually to stamp out every feather the tail of the poor thing possessed.
Amongst the indoor pets was a singularly wicked and morose parrot. Its sole delight seemed to be to get visitors to stroke its head, and then, without any warning, suddenly to fasten upon their fingers and finish up with a sly, low chuckle. Now and then the parrot would utter quite apropos sentences in the most unexpected manner. ”

“ P. Green; front, chin, under wing-covers, and spots in the neck, flanks and scapulars crimson; shoulders dark-red; crown, external wing-covers, and lateral tail-feathers violet-blue; quills blueish-black margined with yellow. P. discolor. Red-shouldered Parakeet. White's Voyage, pl. at p. 263. La Perruche Banks. Le Vaill, pl. 50.
This is another of the splendid little Parakeets inhabiting the forests of New Holland; and vivid as the colouring may appear in our figure, it sinks into dullness when compared with the bird itself. Dr. ”

“ Yet so numerous is the group that even now new species of parrots are not uncommonly recognized.
The home of the vast majority of parrot-forms is unquestionably within the tropics, but the popular belief that parrots are tropical birds only is a great mistake. In North America the Carolina parakeet, Conurus carolinensis, at the beginning of the 19th century used to range in summer as high as the shores of lakes Erie and Ontario—a latitude equal to the south of France ”

“ One day, a friend who was going away for a short time, brought me his parrot to be taken care of during his absence. The bird, finding itself in a strange place, climbed up to the top of its perch by the aid of its beak, and rolled its eyes (as yellow as the nails in my arm-chair) in a rather frightened manner, moving also the white membranes that formed its eyelids. 'Madame Théophile' had never seen a parrot before, and she regarded the creature with manifest surprise. ”

“ Then she swooped down, and, hiding herself behind a buttress so that she could not be detected from below, she set herself to dig out the nearest blue stones with her beak. It was even harder work than she had expected; but at last it was done, and hope arose in her heart. She next drew out a piece of string that she had found hanging from a tree, and sitting down to rest strung the stones together. When the necklace was finished she hung it round her neck, and called: ‘Parrot, come to me!’ And a little later the pink and grey parrot stood before the giant. ”

“ All is over, and the place is very silent, except for the clink of hammers where they are breaking down our wooden walls, and, seaward, the cry and splash of gull and tern dipping for their prey in the shoal of herring-fry which is wandering about the bay. Close inshore a porpoise is wallowing, like the jolly sea-pig that he is, in his berth of glistening water. ”

“ A parrot will, by means of its beak, and aided by its thick, fleshy tongue, clear the inside of a fresh pea from the outer skin, rejecting the latter, and performing the whole process with the greatest ease.
“In climbing, I presume you have noticed, she uses her hooked beak as well as her feet; and in feeding she rests on one foot, [99] holding the food to her beak with the other. Her plumage is generally richly-tinted, while in some varieties, like this, it is superb. In all kinds the skin throws off a mealy powder, which saturates the feathers and makes them greasy.” ”

“ But what shall we say of a sparrow which, turning parasite, should go with splendid audacity and intrust her eggs to the eyrie of a bird of prey—the nest of the sparrowhawk itself—the sanguinary devourer of sparrows? What should we say of the bird of prey who should accept the charge and bring up the brood tenderly? It is precisely thus that the Bembex acts,—she, a captor of Diptera who yet brings up other Diptera—a huntress who distributes food to a prey whose last repast will be her own disembowelled offspring! ”

“ Tiny, in the mean time, had disappeared into the scullery under the sink, and to the last day of the parrot’s life, whenever the dog heard the parrot scream, it used to make for the same spot. And as the parrot was mostly screeching all day, the dog pretty well lived under the sink. But the parrot died at last, poor beast.
The few feathers it had on must have had something to do with it, I fancy. If I were a bird, I know, and had so few feathers, I should die too. It does not seem much worth living with so few on. One could hardly call one’s self a bird. ”

“ These are the physical features of the ordinary parakeet. If this bird was found in Virginia when it was first explored, of which from this description, it seems, there can be no doubt, it now has entirely disappeared, an assertion that cannot be made concerning the other species to which the earliest observers have left references. There is no modern bird with which the parakeet of Hamor and Strachey can be identified; there is none that even approaches it in the general character of its plumage. ”

“ At dusk, a flock of Parakeets may be seen alighting against the trunk of a large Sycamore or any other tree, when a considerable excavation exists within it. Immediately below the entrance the birds all cling 138 to the bark, and crawl into the hole to pass the night. When such a hole does not prove sufficient to hold the whole flock, those around the entrance hook themselves on by their claws, and the tip of the upper mandible, and look as if hanging by the bill. ”

“ That they live to a very great age appears certain from the fact that they have sometimes been kept in captivity for seventy or eighty years.
Parrakeets
These birds are found in the hotter parts of Africa, Asia, and Australia, being very plentiful, for instance, in the forests of India. Perhaps the best known of them is the East Indian ring-necked parrakeet, which is green in color, the male having a red ring round his neck, with a black ring underneath it. The length of the bird is about seventeen inches, of which almost exactly half is taken up by the tail. ”

“ I noticed that the parrots were not so noisy as they had been before I left for the interior, and for several weeks I was at a loss to account for it. But one evening, while returning from the water-cocoanut palms, I espied two diminutive parrots fluttering through the bush. They were young ones and not quite able to fly, though nearly fledged. They would launch out from a limb, sometimes falling short of their next perch, and sometimes striking against a limb, when they would flutter to the ground, making small, parrot-like cries. ”

“ Subsequently I saw my own birds doing this—opening and shutting their short tails just like brilliant fans.
They are only six inches long and inhabit forests in the central parts of Africa. There they fly in large flocks, and often sit closely together in long rows, where their gorgeous little green bodies and red faces must produce a very striking appearance. They are said to be the most hardy of the parrakeet family and will stand a good degree of cold weather. They are no bathers, but they take great pride in arranging their feathers, and in pluming and in stroking one another. ”

“ Aztec Parakeet.—This species was most common in deciduous forest and scrub at Champotón, Pisté, Puerto Juarez, and especially Felipe Carrillo Puerto. Parakeets were extremely wary and only two were collected.
Specimens (2) : ♂, 40481, testis 3 × 2 mm., 75.0 gm., molting—extensive body molt, 8th primaries ensheathed, middle pair of rectrices are new (August 16) , and ♀, 40482, ovary inactive, 72.4 gm. (August 16) , 4 km. NNE Felipe Carrillo Puerto.
Amazona xantholora (Gray) : Yellow-lored Parrot.—The species was abundant in the vicinity of Champotón. Large flocks congregated near camp ”

“ In South America the species of parrots, though numerically nearly as abundant, are far less diversified in form, and all of them seem capable of being referred to two, or, at most, three sections. The species that has the widest range, and that by far, is the common Ring-necked Parakeet, Palaeornis torquatus, a well-known cage-bird which is found from the mouth of the Gambia across Africa to the coast of the Red Sea, as well as throughout the whole of India, Ceylon and Burmah to Tenasserim. ”

“ And hearing the parrot, did say,
"What ails you, what ails you, my pretty parrot,
That you prattle so long before day?"
"It's no laughing matter," the parrot did say,
"That so loudly I call unto thee,
For the cats have got into the window so high,
And I'm afraid they will have me."
"Well turned, well turned, my pretty parrot,
Well turned, well turned for me;
Thy cage shall be made of the glittering gold,
And the door of the best ivory."
F: The False Knight Outwitted ”

“ We only thoroughly identified this beautiful little bird, by an inspection of the costly work of Le Vaillant on this family, in the Banksian Library: for the description of the orange-winged Parakeet of Dr. Latham is not applicable; and Dr. Shaw has persisted in the old error of considering this species a variety of the Toui Parakeet, although the question had been put at rest by the original description and sound reasons of Le Vaillant. There is a wide difference between naturalists who compile, and form their theories from books, and those who study nature, and think for themselves ”

“ The parrot, in particular, has developed for the purpose his curved and inflated beak—a wonderful weapon, keen as a tailor’s scissors, and moved by powerful muscles on both sides of the face which bring together the cutting edges with extraordinary energy. The way the bird holds a fruit gingerly in one claw, while he strips off the rind dexterously with his under-hung lower mandible, and keeps a sharp look-out meanwhile for a possible intruder, suggests to the observing mind the whole living drama of his native forest. ”

“ The flight of the Parakeet is rapid, straight, and continued through the forests, or over fields and rivers, and is accompanied by inclinations of the body which enable the observer to see alternately their upper and under parts. ”