p them in climbing
from branch to branch; and being thus provided alike with wings, legs,
hands, fingers, bill and tongue, they are in fact the most truly
arboreal of all known animals, and present in the fullest and highest
degree all the peculiar features of the tree-haunting existence.

Nor is that all. Alone among birds or mammals, the parrots have the
curious peculiarity of being able to move the upper as well as the
lower jaw. It is this strange mobility of both the mandibles together,
combined with the crafty effect of the sideways glance from those
artful eyes, that gives the characteristic air of intelligence and
wisdom to the parrot's face. We naturally expect so clever a bird to
speak. And when it turns upon us suddenly with a copy-book maxim, we
are in no way astonished at its surpassing smartness.

Parrots are vegetarians; with a single degraded exception to whom I
shall recur hereafter, Sir Henry Thompson himself couldn't find fault
with their regimen. They live chiefly upon a light but nutritious diet
of fruit and seeds, or upon the abundant nectar of rich tropical
flowers. And it is mainly for the sake of getting at their chosen food
that they have developed the large and powerful bills which
characterise the family. You may have perhaps noted that most tropical
fruit-eaters, like the hornbills and the toucans, are remarkable for
the size and strength of their beaks: if you haven't, I dare say you
will generously take my word for it. And, _per contra_, it may also
have struck you that most tropical fruits have thick or hard or
nauseous rinds, which need to be torn off before the monkeys or birds
for whose use they are intended, can get at them and eat them. Our
little northern strawberries, and raspberries, and currants, and
whortleberries, developed with a single eye to the petty robins and
finches of temperate climates, can be popped into, the mouth whole and
eaten as they stand: they are meant for small birds to devour, and to
disperse the tiny undigested nut-like seeds in return for the bribe of
the soft pulp that surrounds them. But it is quite otherwise with
oranges, shaddocks, bananas, plantains, mangoes, and pine-apples: those
great tropical fruits can only be eaten properly with a knife and fork,
after stripping off the hard and often acrid rind that guards and
preserves them. They lay themselves out for dispersion by monkeys,
toucans, and other relatively large and powerful fruit-eaters; and t