Osteology of the Psittaci / by R.W. Shufeldt.

  • Shufeldt, Robert W. (Robert Wilson), 1850-1934.
Date:
1902
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Osteology of the Psittaci / by R.W. Shufeldt. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    any rate it would seem advisable to keep them in a single Family Psittacidce, but there can be no objection to separating them into sev- eral subfamilies. The Cockatoos, for instance, can be without much difficulty defined, and may stand as Cacatuincej and then the brush- tongued Lories as Loriince, after which the Macaws, Arince—including possibly Conurus and its allies. ’ ’ “ Platycercus and its neighbors may form another section, and the same with the Palceornis ; but for the rest there is not yet material for arriving at any determination, though Chrysotis and Psittacus seem to furnish two different types, to the former of which Psittacula appears to bear much the same relation as Agapornis does to the latter. Amongst the genera Chrysotis, Palceornis, and Psittacus are probably to be found the most highly organized forms, and it is these birds in which the faculty of so-called ‘ speech ’ reaches its maximum development. But too much importance must not be assigned to that fact; since, while Psittacus erithacus—the well-known Grey Parrot with a red tail—is the most accomplished spokesman of the whole group, it is fairly ap- proached by some species of Chrysotis—usually styled Amazons—and yet its congener P. timneh is not known to be at all loquacious. ’ ’5 With respect to the relation of the Psittaci to the Raptorial Birds, Professor Newton has said, “ That the Striges stand quite independently of the Accipitres as above limited can hardly be doubted, and, while the Psittaci or Parrots would on some grounds appear to be the nearest allies of the Accipitres, the nearest relations of the Owls must be looked for in the multifarious group Picarice ” (loc. cit., Art. “ Ornithology,” P- 47)- In his invaluable and recent work ‘ ‘A Hand-List of the Genera and Species of Birds,” Doctor R. Bowdlei^considers all the members of this group as forming an Order (XXVIII) —the Psittaciformes — which he places between the Strigiformes (Order XXVI [XXVII?]; and the Coraciiformes (Order XXIX), the latter start- ing in with the family Steatornithidce without giving the actual number of the known species of this great host of birds as enumerated by this distinguished ornithologist. I would suppose that his scheme of classification for them is as follows: 5Newton, Alfred. Art. “Parrot,” Encycl. Brit., 9th ed., Vol. XVIII, p. 323 (1885).