Domicella, Wgl. Description.

The Broad-tailed, or True Lories, are the prettiest and most charming of their family. Although active and lively, they are gentler than their congeners with the pointed tail. Their special marks are as follows : A powerful beak, mostly as deep as it is long, compressed at the sides; the upper mandible has a rounded ridge, much bent point, and is slightly hollowed out; the lower beak also compressed, with straight socket edge, sometimes slightly hollowed; the sharp edges are not hollowed out; the tongue is thick and fleshy, with a spoon-like depression near the front; it has fibrous, movable papillae; the nostrils are round and open, situated in a narrow cere; eyes dark-brown, inclining to orange-red; nearly always a featherless circle round the eye; feet powerful; claws much bent; the wings long and pointed; the tail short and rounded, consisting of feathers equally graduated; the plumage close, composed of somewhat hard feathers on the neck, but on the throat and upper part of the body they are long; sometimes there is an irregular crest. The colours are brilliant; there is probably no outward distinction between the sexes; the body is slim. Size, varying from that of a sparrow to a jackdaw.

They are widely diffused over the Moluccas and Polynesia. Scarcely any inquiries have been made into their life in freedom, but, so far as is known, it agrees with the descriptions already given. The smallest species are said to subsist, at least at times, entirely on the honey of flowers.

Some of them belong to those ornamental birds which have been known and imported from ancient times, and which are numerously kept in their native countries in cages or on foot-chains, and form an article of commerce which, in later times, has greatly increased. The majority can with difficulty be accustomed to seed as a diet. Some never take it, therefore they are more difficult to keep in captivity than the Sharp-tailed Lorikeets. Of course, the danger is greatest when they are being inured to the change of food and of climate. When they are acclimatised, they prove to be hardy, though they cannot, as was remarked before, bear cold or draughts as well as others of the tribe. We find a considerable number of speakers among their ranks, and, in my opinion, if they are more frequently imported, and their needs in captivity more observed, they will all, or all the greater species, prove gifted with speech, though, of course, only to a moderate extent. In proportion to their advancement in taming and training their shrill and often wearisome cry ceases.