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Sowerby can find no distinguishing character between this fossil, as far as its not very perfect condition allows of comparison, and the recent species. 9. Balanus Coquimbensis, G.B. Sowerby. 10. Balanus psittacus? King. This appears to Mr. Sowerby and myself identical with a very large and common species now living on the coast.
They have a good deal in common with those bright, clever, and famous mimics, the Indian mynahs, which they much resemble physically. This was the bird which Bontius considered "went one better" than Ovid's famous parrot: "Psittacus, Eois quamvis tibi missus ab oris Jussa loquar; vincit me sturnus garrulus Indis."
This delicate bird was noticed by Captain Cook upon the coast, and is called PSITTACUS NOVAE HOLLANDIAE, or New Holland Parrot, by Mr. Brown. It had not, however, been subsequently seen until the summer of 1828, when it made its appearance at Wellington Valley in considerable numbers, together with a species of merops or mountain bee-eater.
The little blue Psittacus Taitianus frequents the top of the cocoa-palm; the Ardea sacra walks along the coral reefs; but it is seldom that a tropical bird is seen on the wing. A Gecko of the species Hemidactylus lives about old houses; a small lizard of the family of Scincoidea, with a copper-coloured body and a blue tail, and a striped Ablepharus, are met with frequently among the rocks.
On another hill, some miles distant, and 648 feet high, I found shells of the Concholepas and Trochus, perfect, though very old, with fragments of Mytilus Chiloensis, all embedded in reddish-brown mould: I also found these same species, with fragments of an Echinus and of Balanus psittacus, on a hill 1,000 feet high.
Kent, the assistant-surgeon, was so kind as to make for me some measurements with the barometer: he found many marine remains along the shores of the whole bay, at a height of about twenty feet; and from the hill of Sentinella behind Talcahuano, at the height of 160 feet, he collected numerous shells, packed together close beneath the surface in black earth, consisting of two species of Mytilus, two of Crepidula, one of Concholepas, of Fissurella, Venus, Mactra, Turbo, Monoceros, and the Balanus psittacus.
The Fuegian parrot, or paroquet, is known to naturalists as Psittacus Imaragdinus, the humming-bird as Melisuga Kingii. Another day dawns upon the castaways, with again a bright sun on the horizon; and Ned Gancy and Henry Chester, who have risen early, as they look out over the water, become witnesses of the curious behaviour of another Fuegian fishing-bird the cormorant.
The inhabitants of the Navigator Isles brought us the little Psittacus australis, Columba australis, and another very prettily marked dove, having green plumage, ornamented with a dark violet line across the breast, and the feet and head of a reddish purple.
The other had all the air of a gigantic parrot: he had a hooked bill, a sharp look, a yellow head; and all the rest of his strange figure was party-coloured, blue, green, red, and black. I classed him at once as a specimen of the Psittacus Ochropterus. The ape and the parrot seemed to have taken shelter beneath the palm tree, like myself, for the purposes of shade and repose.
This delicate bird was noticed by Captain Cook upon the coast, and is called PSITTACUS NOVAE HOLLANDIAE, or New Holland Parrot, by Mr. Brown. It had not, however, been subsequently seen until the summer of 1828, when it made its appearance at Wellington Valley in considerable numbers, together with a species of merops or mountain bee-eater.
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