y possess of imitating the human voice, they are general
favourites, both in the drawingroom of the wealthy and the cottage of
humble life.

The various species differ in size, as well as in appearance and colour.
Some (as the macaws) are larger than the domestic fowl, and some of the
parakeets are not larger than a blackbird or even a sparrow.

The interesting bird of which our Engraving gives a representation was
recently brought alive to this country by the captain of a South-seaman
(the _Alert_), who obtained it from a Chinese vessel from the Island of
Papua, to whom the captain of the _Alert_ rendered valuable assistance
when in a state of distress. In size this bird is one of the largest of
the parrot tribe, being superior to the great red Mexican Macaw. The
whole plumage is black, glossed with a greenish grey; the head is
ornamented with a large crest of long pendulous feathers, which it
erects at pleasure, when the bird has a most noble appearance; the
orbits of the eyes and cheeks are of a deep rose-colour; the bill is of
great size, and will crack the hardest fruit stones; but when the
kernel is detached, the bird does not crush and swallow it in large
fragments, but scrapes it with the lower mandible to the finest pulp,
thus differing from other parrots in the mode of taking food. In the
form of its tongue it differs also from other birds of the kind. A
French naturalist read a memoir on this organ before the Academy of
Sciences at Paris, in which he aptly compared it, in its uses, to the
trunk of an elephant. In its manners it is gentle and familiar, and when
approached raises a cry which may be compared to a hoarse croaking. In
its gait it resembles the rook, and walks much better than most of the
climbing family.

[Illustration: GOLIAH ARATOO.]

From the general conformation of the parrots, as well as the arrangement
and strength of their toes, they climb very easily, assisting themselves
greatly with their hooked bill, but walk rather awkwardly on the ground,
from the shortness and wide separation of their legs. The bill of the
parrot is moveable in both mandibles, the upper being joined to the
skull by a membrane which acts like a hinge; while in other birds the
upper beak forms part of the skull. By this curious contrivance they can
open their bills widely, which the hooked form of the beak would not
otherwise allow them to do. The structure of the wings varies greatly in
the different species: in g