[Footnote 1: Similar instances are recorded in other countries of sudden mortality amongst crows to a prodigious extent, but whether occasioned by lightning seems uncertain. In 1839 thirty-three thousand dead crows were found on the shores of a lake in the county Westmeath in Ireland after a storm.--THOMPSON'S _Nat. Hist. Ireland_, vol. i. p. 319, and Patterson in his Zoology, p. 356, mentions other cases.]
III. SCANSORES. _Parroquets_.--Of the Psittacidæ the only examples are the parroquets, of which the most renowned is the _Palæornis Alexandri_, which has the historic distinction of bearing the name of the great conquerer of India, having been the first of its race introduced to the knowledge of Europe on the return of his expedition. An idea of their number may be formed from the following statement of Mr. Layard, as to the multitudes which are found on the western coast. "At Chilaw I have seen such vast flights of parroquets coming to roost in the coco-nut trees which overhang the bazaar, that their noise drowned the Babel of tongues bargaining for the evening provisions. Hearing of the swarms which resorted to this spot, I posted myself on a bridge some half mile distant, and attempted to count the flocks which came from a single direction to the eastward. About four o'clock in the afternoon, straggling parties began to wend towards home, and in the course of half an hour the current fairly set in. But I soon found that I had no longer distinct flocks to count, it became one living screaming stream. Some flew high in the air till right above their homes, and dived abruptly downward with many evolutions till on a level with the trees; others kept along the ground and dashed close by my face with the rapidity of thought, their brilliant plumage shining with an exquisite lustre in the sun-light. I waited on the spot till the evening closed, when I could hear, though no longer distinguish, the birds fighting for their perches, and on firing a shot they rose with a noise like the 'rushing of a mighty wind,' but soon settled again, and such a din commenced as I shall never forget; the shrill screams of the birds, the fluttering of their innumerable wings, and the rustling of the leaves of the palm trees, was almost deafening, and I was glad at last to escape to the Government Rest House."[1]
