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PARROTT

1426

PARTRIDGE

btrt now it is seen only in Florida, and rarely there. Its body is bright green, its head and neck yellow. Parrots proper have short, square tails, and are bir^ of moderate size. They are characterized by Hornaday as "naturally sedate and observant, possessing excellent memories, fond of the companionship of man . . . the broad, fleshy tongue rendering possible the articulation of many vocal sounds/' The voice is naturally harsh, but many can be taught to speak. Parrots vary much individually in their capacity for speech. The jako, or gray parrot of Africa is the best talker; the yellow-headed parrot of Mexico stands second in the art.

Par'rott, Robert Parker, an American inventor, was born at Lee, N. H., Oct. 5, 1804. He graduated from West Point, and was professor of mathematics and of natural philosophy there. His active service in the army was in the war against the Creeks in 1834. In 1836 he was put in charge of the West Point cannon foundry. While there he invented the system of rifled-guns and projectiles which bears his name. These guns were first used at the battb of Bull Run in 1861. He died at Cold Spring N, Y., Dec. 24, 1877.

Par'ry, Sir William Edward, an Arctic explorer, was born at Bath, England^ Dec. 19, 1790, and entered the navy in 1806. In 1810 he commanded a ship sent to the Arctic to protect the whale fisheries, and afterward commanded expeditions, in 1818, to find the Northwest Passage, in 1819, to explore Barrow Strait, Regent's Inlet and Wellington Channel, in 1821 and 1824, with no results, and in 1827 with an attempt to reach the pole in sledges from Spitzbergen. He was knighted in 1829, became rear-admiral in 1852, and in 1853 was appointed governor of Greenwich Hospital, an office that he held to his death July 8, 1855, at Ems, Germany* See Life by his son.

Par'sis (par'sez), are the few remaining followers of the Persian religion of Zoroaster. Their name is Persian for Persians. When Zoroaster lived or whether he lived at all is a question, but that which remains of the alleged teachings shows that at first the belief centered in a single god, but that the god had two spirits, a reality and a non-reality; which soon led to the worship of two gods, a god of good and one of eviL The religion flourished to the time of Alexander the Great, but after his death it declined until A. D. 212, when Ardashfr caused the book (Zend) to be restored and spread it throughout the land. The priests, of whom there were 40,000, became very powerful, and the religion flourished again until the defeat of the Persians in the battle ox Nahavand by Omar in 641 A. D. Thereupon the greater portion became Mohammedans, but many fled some going to India, where they now live under English rule and are much respected. In 1901 there were

94,190 Parsis in British India; and in Persia there are about 9,000 Parsis or Guebers. They eat nothing cooked by a person of another religion, and no beef or pork; prohibit polygamy; and they do not bury their dead, but expose the bodies upon an iron grating. The symbol of their god is the sun, and the worship is by a perpetual fire •upon the altars. See Monier Williams's Modern India.

Par'sons, Kas., a city in Labette County, on the St. Louis and San Francisco and Missouri, Kansas and Texas railroads, the latter maintaining car and machine shops here. It has an industrial establishment and prominent buildings, notably the High School and the Masonic buildings. It was founded in 1871 and incorporated as a city in 1873. The government is vested in a mayor, elected for two years, and a council. Population 12,463.

Parthenogenesis (pdr'the-nd-jen'e-si,s) (in plants), the name applied to the production of a new plant by an egg which has not been fertilized. It is a common phenomenon in certain of the lowest plants (Thallophytes), but is very rare in the higher plants. The term is often wrongly used among seed-plants to 'nclude the formation of embryos within seeds without the presence of pollen. In most of these cases it has been proved that the embryo has not come from an unfertilized egg but has arisen by a budding process from other cells.

Parthenon (pdr'the-non) (Greek for maiden's chamber) is the temple of Athene* (Pallas) in Athens, as it stands, the most perfect example of Greek architecture. The erection of it was superintended by Pheidias, It is built of Pentelic marble, with eight pillars in breadth and 15 in length,, being 228 feet long and 64 feet higho It stood uninjured until 1687,, when it was being used as a Turkish magazine and an exploding Venetian bomb reduced it to its present state of ruin. See the Dilettanti Society's Athenian Architecture.

Par'ton, James, an American author, was born at Canterbury Englands Feb. 9, 1822 coming to New York when five years old. His chief works are lives of Greeleys Franklins Jefferson, Burr, Jackson and Voltaire. He died at Newburyport, Mass., Oct. 17 1891.

Par'tridge, a game-bird belonging to the grouse family0 The true partridges are Old World birds. Nevertheless the name is loosely applied in the United States to the ruffed grouse, which is called partridge in the north, and to the bob-white, called partridge in the south. The common partridge ot England and Europe is about a foot long, of a mottled-gray color. The red-legged partridge of Europe and Asia is larger and if? one ot the finest game birds. The California mountain quail or mountain partridge is an interesting bird of our north-