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PABROTT 127 PARSEES globe, remarkable for the brilliant, and in some cases gaudy, coloration of their plumage, and the facility with which many of them acquire and repeat words and phrases. PARROTS (A) Hawk-Billed Parrot. (B) Red and Blue Macaw. (C) Parrakeet. PARROTT, ROBERT PARKER, an American inventor; born in Lee, N. H., Oct. 5, 1804; was graduated at the United States Military Academy in 1824; was Professor of Natural and Ex- perimental Philosophy at the Academy in 1824-1826, and of Mathematics in 1826-1828. Commissioned a lieutenant, he served through the Greek war, and was afterward assigned to the Ordnance Bureau at Washington. He invented the well-known Parrott gun. He died in Cold Spring, N. Y., Dec. 24, 1877. PARRY, SIR (CHARLES) HUBERT HASTINGS, a British composer. He was born at Bournemouth, Eng., in 1848 and made attempts at music at Eton, and at Oxford, graduating as M. A. in 1874, and studying music under Bennett, Mac- farren, and Dannreuther. He held musi- cal positions at Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, becoming professor of composi- tion and musical history and finally di- rector at the Royal College of Music. He was made a knight in 1898, and a baronet in 1903. He died in 1918. His works include "Judith"; "Job"; "King Saul" (oratorios) ; several symphonies and much incidental music. "Glories of Our Blood and State"; "Blest Pair of Sirens"; "Ode to St. Cecilia's Day"; "The Soul's Ransom," are his chief choral works. PARRY, SIR WILLIAM EDWARD, an English navigator; born in Bath in 1790. He entered the navy in 1803, and in 1818 accompanied Sir John Ross, as second in command, to Baffin's Bay, in an expedition for the discovery of the Northwest Passage, which was unsuc- cessful. But the year following. Lieu- tenant Parry was appointed to the com- mand of the "Hecla" and "Griper"; and this voyage resulted in the discovery of a considerable portion of the Northwest Passage, the ships wintering at Melville's Island. Captain Parry commanded two other expeditions that failed of success. In 1827 he again commanded the "Hecla" in an attempt to reach the North Pole. The ship was left at Spitzbergen, and Parry with his boats succeeded in reach- ing the highest latitude attained up to that time (82° 45'), but the drift of the ice S. prevented further advance. He died in 1855. PARRY ISLANDS, an archipelago of the Arctic Ocean, lying for the most part N. of the seventy-fifth parallel of latitude. The islands extend toward the W. from Baffin Bay. The most impor- tant are North Devon, Cornwallis, Bathhurst, Milville and Prince Patrick. The islands are not inhabited. They were first explored by Parry in 1819. PARSEES, or GUEBRES, the name of the small remnant of the followers of the ancient Persian religion, as established or reformed by Zoroaster (Zarathustra or Zerdusht). The relation in which Zoroaster stood to the ancient Iranian faith and his date have been much de- bated. It has been alleged that at first the doctrine was a pure monotheism; that Zoroaster taught the existence of but one deity, the Ahura-Mazdao (Or- muzd), the creator of all things, to whom all good things, spiritual and worldly, belong. The principle of his philosophy, was dualism: there being in Ahura-Mazdao two primeval causes of the real and intellectual world — the Vohu Mano, the Good Mind or Reality (Gaya), and the Akem Mano, or the Naught Mind or Nonreality (Ajyaiti). Certainly, however, the pure idea of mo- notheism, if it ever existed, did not long prevail. The two sides of Ahura-Maz- dao's being were taken to be two distinct spirits, Ahura-Mazdao and Angro- Mainyush (Ahriman), who represented good and evil — God and Devil. These