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Updated: July 13, 2025
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.
The tree-kangaroos are found here, but must be very scarce, as my hunters, although out daily in the forest, never once saw them. Cockatoos, lories, and parroquets were really the only common birds. Even pigeons were scarce, and in little variety, although we occasionally got the fine crown pigeon, which was always welcome as an addition to our scantily furnished larder.
The lory is of the size of a pigeon, the plumage dashed with green, part of the wings crimson, and its crest bordered with white. To the young boy belonged the honor of this shot, and he was proud enough of it. Lories are better food than the jacamar, the flesh of which is rather tough, but it was difficult to persuade Pencroft that he had not killed the king of eatable birds.
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.
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.
I knew by means of my ears what birds he had found, before I caught sight of them, for every now and then a harsh shrill scream was uttered, and before long I could see across the opening quite a little flock of beautiful scarlet lories busily feeding on the clustering fruit of a tall forest tree, which, being close to the sunny opening, was covered with leaves and twigs, from the top to the very ground.
They are all very tame and very cheap; and some of the scarlet lories, looking like a flame of fire, chatter in the most amusing way. I have a cage full of tiny parrots not bigger than bullfinches, of a dark green colour, with dark red throats and blue heads, yellow marks on the back, and red and yellow tails.
Here my eyes were feasted for the first time with splendid scarlet lories on the wing, as well as by the sight of that most imperial butterfly, the "Priamus" of collectors, or a closely allied species, but flying so high that I did not succeed in capturing a specimen. One of them was brought me in a bamboo, bored up with a lot of beetles, and of course torn to pieces.
Almost the only sounds in these primeval woods proceeded from two birds, the red lories, who utter shrill screams like most of the parrot tribe, and the large green nutmeg-pigeon, whose voice is either a loud and deep boom, like two notes struck upon a very large gong, or sometimes a harsh toad-like croak, altogether peculiar and remarkable.
On landing, the Orang-kaya and several of the chief men, in gorgeous silk jackets, were waiting to receive us, and conducted me to a house prepared for my reception, where I determined to stay a few days, and see if the country round produced anything new. My first inquiries were about the lories, but I could get very little satisfactory information.
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