single night on one “station”—ranch, we should call it. I need hardly say that the New Zealand sheep-farmer resents this irregular procedure, so opposed to all ideas of humanity, to say nothing of good-farming, and, as a result, the existence of the kea is now limited to a few years. But from a purely psychological point of view the case is interesting, as being the best recorded instance of the growth of a new and complex instinct actually under the eyes of human observers. A few words as to the general coloring of the parrot group. Tropical forestine birds have usually a ground tone of green because that color enables them best to escape notice among the monotonous verdure of equatorial woodland scenery. In the north, it is true, green is a very conspicuous color; but that is only because for half the year our trees are bare, and even during the other half they lack that “breadth of tropic shade” which characterizes the forests of all hot countries. Therefore, in temperate climates, the common ground-tone of birds is brown, to harmonize with the bare boughs and leafless twigs, the dead grass or stubble. But in the ever-green tropics, green is the proper hue for concealment or defense. Therefore the parrots, the most purely tropical family of birds on earth, are chiefly greenish; and among the smaller and more defenceless sorts, like the little love-birds, where the need for protection is greatest, the green of the plumage is almost unbroken. Green, in truth, must be regarded as the basal parrot tint, from which all other colors are special decorative variations. But fruit-eating and flower-feeding creatures—such as butterflies and humming birds—seeking their food among the brilliant flowers and bright berries, almost invariably acquire a taste for varied coloring, and by the aid of the factor in evolution, known as sexual selection, this taste stereotypes itself at last upon their wings and plumage. They choose their mates for their attractive coloring. As a consequence, all the larger and more gregarious parrots, in which the need for concealment is less, tend to diversify the fundamental green of their coats with red, yellow or blue, which in some cases takes possession of the entire body. The largest kinds of all, like the great blue and yellow or crimson macaws, are as gorgeous as birds well could be; they are also the species least afraid of enemies. In Brazil, it is said, they may often be seen moving about in pairs in the evening with as little attempt at concealment as storks in Germany. [Illustration: ] Even the New Zealand owl-parrot still retains many traces of his original greenness, mixed with the brown and dingy yellow of his nocturnal and burrowing nature.