Parrot of the international market: hundreds of thousands of these were parrots. No national laws protect feral parrot populations in the U.S. Mexico has a licensing system for capturing and selling native birds. Parrots have featured in human writings, story, art, humor, religion, and music for thousands of years. From Aesop's fable "The parrot and the cat" and the Roman poet Ovid's "The Dead Parrot" to Monty Python's "Dead Parrot sketch", parrots have existed in the consciousness of many cultures. Recent books about parrots in human culture include "Parrot Culture". In ancient times and current, parrot feathers have been used in
Mascarene parrot of the scientific names, such as "Mascarinus obscurus" and "Coracopsis obscura". The unidentified parrot may have been a grey parrot ("Psittacus erithacus") instead. Another unidentified parrot specimen, this one brown and housed in Cabinet du Roi, was described by the French naturalist Comte de Buffon in 1779 under his entry for the Mascarene parrot, in which he pointed out similarities and differences between the two. The English palaeontologist Julian Hume has suggested the possibility that this might have been a lesser vasa parrot, if not a discoloured old Mascarene grey parakeet ("Psittacula bensoni"). The specimen is now lost. English zoologist