046 



NESTS AND EGGS Of AUSTRALIAN HIRDS. 



existed, and consequently the birds were not laying. However, on 

 a trip subsequently, Mr. D. Le Souef was more successful, and was 

 enabled to bring away an excellent photograph of an ant-hill, also 

 one showing the position of the eggs in the mound. 



Dr. Carl Lumholtz observed that the nests were several miles apart, 

 and that those examined in September contained eggs partly incu- 

 bated. He proceeds to state, " There is an in-egular entrance, about 

 two inches in diameter and about a foot above the ground. In the 

 interior the Parrot makes an opening about a foot high and two or 

 three feet in diameter. None of the building material is carried away, 

 but all the cells and canals are trampled down, so that there remains 

 simply a wall, one or two inches thick, around the whole nest. Here 

 the female lays five white eggs." 



Breeding months September to December. 



516. — PsEPHOTUS CHRYSOPTERYGius, Gould. (428) 



GOLDEN-SHOULDERED PARRAKEET. 



Figure. — Gould : Birds of Australia, fol., supp., pi. 64. 

 Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xx., p. 565. 



Geoyrii [ill leal Di^tributuin. — North-west Australia, Northern Ten-i- 

 tory, and North Queensland. 



Nest and Eggs. — Undescribed. 



Observations.- — Gould wrote concerning the glorious Golden- 

 shouldered Parrakeet: — " One of the greatest pleasures enjoyed by tiie 

 late celebrated botanist, Robert Brown, during the last thirty years 

 of his life, was now and then to show me a drawing of a Panakeet, 

 made by one of the brothers Bauer, from a specimen procured some- 

 where on the north coast of Australia, but of which no specimen was 

 preserved at the time, and none had been sent to England until 

 several were brought home by Mr. Elsey, a year or two prior to 

 Mr. Brown's death. On comparing these with the drawing made at 

 least forty years before, no doubt remained in my mind as to its 

 having been made from an example of this species." 



Tliis most beautiful Parrakeet remained in oblivion for exactly 

 another forty years (Mr. Elsey having obtained his skins in the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria district during Gregory's explorations, 14th September, 

 1856), until Mr. Hariy Bamard secured specimens at Pine Creek, 

 Port Darwin district, for .some Melbourne collectors. I bad the 

 pleasure of examining the rare specimens. 



Tiie following year (10th M.ircli, 1897) the Zoological Society of 

 London purchased a pair of live Golden-sliouldercd P.iriakeets in 

 England. By a coincidence, the end of the same year anotiier bird 

 was bought in a dealer's shop, Sydney, for the Trustees of the Aus- 

 tralian Museum. No doubt, in both instances, these live birds came 

 originally from Port Darwin. 



