Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 15.djvu/448

PARRISH. Education in the Society of Friends (Pliiladel- jihia, 18U0,).

PARRISH, JIaxfield (1870—). An Ameri- can jiainter and illustrator, born in Philadelphia. He was a pupil of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, and of Howard Pyle. He became widely known by his decorative posters and de- signs for magazine covers. His work is usually in the flat tints used by a number of the modern illustrators, and is remarkable for strong, deli- cate line, clever gradation of tone, and the rich detail of the background. His illustrations, which include those for The Golden Age of Ken- neth Grahame, Mother Goose in I'rose, and Knickerbockers History of Kew York, are full of charm and humor. Among his paintings are "The Sandman" and "The Bulletin Board." He became a member of the Society of American Artists in 1897, and received honorable mention at the Paris E.xposition of 1900.

PARRISH, Stephen (1840—). An Ameri- can landscape painter and etcher, born in Phila- delphia, Pa. He first exhibited at the Penn- sylvania Academy in 1878, and a year afterwards at the Xational Academy in Xew York City. Among his pictures are "Low Tide," "In Win- ter Quarters," "Evening," and "The Road to Perry's Peak." His subjects are usually large, open expanses of country — often winter scenes — treated with much poetic feeling. His etchings include the series of plates, "Cape Ann to Marblehead," and many other American seaboard scenes.

PARROCEL, pa'ro'sel'. A family of French painters, the first of whom was B.^rtuelemy (c.lOOO-c.GO), a painter of religious subjects. The mo.st important was Joseph (1646-1704), the battle painter, born at Brignolles, He studied under his father and elder brother, Louis, and afterwards was the pupil of Le Bourguignon in Rome. He was made a member of the .Vcademy in 1076, his reception picture being "Louis XIV. Repulsing a Sortie of the ilaestriclit Garrison" (Louvre). He is said to have kno i nothing of actual soldiering, but he had a vigorous brush and considerable skill in composition. There are also pictures by him at Versailles, and in Notre Dame and the Invalides, Paris, He left several etchings after his own designs, which include forty-eight scenes from the life of Christ. Other painters of this name were his son Charles (1688-1752). a battle painter; his nephew. Pierre ( 1070-17.39). whose subjects were mostly religious: and Igxace Fraxoois (1704- 81). son and pupil of Pierre, an historical and genre painter.

PARROQUET. An alternative spelling for 'parrakcet' iq.v. ). In the L'nited States the grou]i is represented by the Carolina parroquet or parrakeet.

PARROT (probably from Fr. P'errot, Pierrot, diminutive of Pierre, Peter). A bird of the group Psittaci. which is related to the cuckoos and plantain-eaters, and includes two families, the Psittaeida" and Trichoglossidae, together number- ing about .500 species. Most of them are natives of the tropics, and especially of the Australian and Malayan regions, and about 100 species occur in Xew Guinea alone. South America has about l.'JO species, and Africa and Southern Asia the remainder. Few inhabit or even enter the temjierate zone, the most northerly one, perhaps, being the now nearly extinct Carolina parrakeet (q.v.) of the United Slates. The determining feature in the family is the beak, which is sliort, stout, and greatly arched, the upper mandible hooking over the lower, and movablv hinged to the skull. The feet are short and strong, and the toes are two before and two behind. The wings are likely to be rather short and in some groups rounded; and the tail may be short and broad as in the true parrots, or very long and pointed, as in the parrakects, noticeably broad in others, and so on. Most parrots are gaudily colored, but some are soberly clad; and there is likely to be a crest — very prominent in the cockatoos and less so in some others — or other modifications of the feathers of the head, as in the facial disks of the owl-parrots or kakapos (q.v.). The se.ves are usually much alike. Most parrots are forest-birds, although a few are of terrestrial habits and are stvled ground- parrots, and a few others, like' the grass- parrakcets, inhabit grassy or brushy plains. As a rule, also, they are gregarious, and many species go in large flocks. Their food with few exceptions is vegetable — plantains, papaw- apples, figs, and tamarinds being varied by tlow- ers, buds, leaves, palm-nuts, and otlier hard fruits, grass-seeds, and grain. This supplies so much moisture that little drinking .seems neces- sary. Exceptional foods arc the bulbs and tubers for which cockatoos dig, while .some spe- cies search the bark of trees for insects, or extract honey and insects from flowers with their brush- tipped tongues. (See Lory.) Lastly, the kaka (q.v.) has acquired a taste for flesh. They gather this food by climbing about the branches like the nimblest of acrobats, using their beaks freely in support of their bodies, and manipulating their food with their claws as no other bird ever does.

The voices of parrots as a rule are harsh, and the great macaws and cockatoos scream most discordantly. Some, however, utter low and sweet twittering notes. JIany have great facility in imitating other sounds or human speech, and some learn to articulate words and phrases with much distinctness, if given patient training. There is a popular notion that this process may be aided by slitting the tongue — a practice as useless and foolish as it is barbarous. It is not certain that the tongue has anything more to do with the enunciation of parrots than in the case of other birds, where it plays no part in utterance. The tongue is always large, round, and fleshy. In the subfamily Nestorinic (the kakas) it is fringed; and in lories it has a brush of hairs toward the tip.

The typical, and perhaps the best-known, par- rot is the African gray parrot {Psillocns erithaciis) of equatorial Africa, which is ashy gray, with lilack wing-quills, a red tail, and whitish, naked face. It is in high esteem among most of the African tribes, who rear it from the nest as a house pet, enjoy its flesh, and seek its feathers as ornaments, some setting apart the red tail feathers fi>r their chiefs as insignia of rank. Long ago these parrots were carried to Europe, and afterwards to all parts of the world, and have shown fbemselves not only hardy, long-lived, and afTectionate, but the clear- est talkers of the whole tril)e. A closely allied hut nuieh darker West African species is imable