Parrots in the Philippine Islands

Abstract

PRAY allow me space to acknowledge a bad mistake which I first made in the ninth edition of the “Encyclopædia Britannica” (xviii. p. 322), and have lately repeated in the “Dictionary of Birds” (p. 687), by asserting that parrots are “wanting in the Philippine Islands.” Seeing that the article was written more than ten years ago, it is quite out of my power to account for the misstatement: my only wonder is that it has not been before challenged, since there is, and has been for some centuries, abundance of evidence to show that there are plenty of parrots in that group of islands, which, indeed, is as well furnished with them (as remarked by my friend Mr. L. W. Wiglesworth, who has kindly drawn my attention to my error) as is the island of Celebes, and I had already (p. 93) noticed the Philippine species of Cockatoo.