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In most parrots the mouth is dry and the tongue horny; but in the lories it is moist and much more like the same organ in the humming-birds and sun-birds. The prevalence of very large and brilliantly coloured flowers in the Malayan region must be set down for the most part to the selective action of these æsthetic and colour-loving little brush-tongued parrots.
Instead also of the various birds which exist in other parts of the world, it has the mound-making brush-turkeys, the cockatoos, and the brush-tongued lories, as well as honey-suckers, to be found in no other part of the world. These peculiarities are discovered in the other islands I have mentioned, forming the Austro-Malayan division of the archipelago.
Brush-tongued lories, black cockatoos, and gorgeously coloured pigeons, though somewhat less antique, perhaps, in type, give a special character to the bird-life of the country. And in New Guinea, an isolated bit of the same old continent, the birds of paradise, found nowhere else in the whole world, seem to recall some forgotten Eden of the remote past, some golden age of Saturnian splendour.
And the brush-tongued lories, that search for nectar among the bells of Malayan blossoms, are the brightest-coloured of all the parrot tribes. Indeed, no group of birds, according to Mr. 'As a rule, he says, 'parrots may be termed green birds, the majority of the species having this colour as the basis of their plumage, relieved by caps, gorgets, bands and wing-spots of other and brighter hues.
I also continued to obtain a few new birds, among which were two or three kinds of small hawks and falcons, a beautiful brush-tongued paroquet, Trichoglossus ornatus, and a rare black and white crow, Corvus advena.
I did not get a great many birds here. The most remarkable were the fine crimson lory, Eos rubra a brush-tongued parroquet of a vivid crimson colour, which was very abundant. Large flocks of them came about the plantation, and formed a magnificent object when they settled down upon some flowering tree, on the nectar of which lories feed.
Ferns and palms of graceful forms were seen everywhere; climbing ratans formed entangled festoons pendent from every forest tree; while fine crimson lories and brush-tongued turkeys, also of a bright crimson colour, flew in and out amidst the foliage, forming a magnificent sight, especially when a flock of the former settled down on some flowering tree, the nectar from which the lories delight to suck.
The first thing I saw here was a flock of small parroquets, of which I shot a pair, and was pleased to find a most beautiful little long-tailed bird, ornamented with green, red, and blue colours, and quite new to me. It was a variety of the Charmosyna placentis, one of the smallest and most elegant of the brush-tongued lories.
In birds it is almost as peculiar. It has no woodpeckers and no pheasants families which exist in every other part of the world; but instead of them it has the mound-making brush-turkeys, the honeysuckers, the cockatoos, and the brush-tongued lories, which are found nowhere else upon the globe.
It is only in confinement that her finer qualities come out, and that she develops into a speech-maker of distinguished attainments. A very peculiar and exceptional offshoot of the parrot group is the brush-tongued lory, several species of which are common in Australia, India, and the Molucca Islands.
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