Dr. G. Hartlaub on Agapornis swinderniana, 85 



cimen having disappeared^ and no other one existing in any 

 European collection. Dr. Finsch was fully justified in stating, 

 in his monograph of Parrots, that the species was a very 

 doubtful one, and that he was inclined to take it for an 

 " artefact.'' 



In the second volume of his ' General History of Birds,' 

 Latham described a Parrakeet from Sierra Leone, after a spe- 

 cimen in the collection of Mr. Brogden' — the Agapornis picta 

 of my book on the Birds of Western Africa. What has 

 become of this specimen in later times is entirely unknown. 

 Now I feel almost sure that this " Leona Parrakeet " of old 

 Latham is nothing but the Swinderen's Parrot of Kuhl, the 

 only essential difference in the descriptions of both being 

 that Latham designates the colour of the chin and throat as 

 " of a fine pale grey," whereas these parts are yellowish green 

 in Psittacus swindernianus. This difference is neverthe- 

 less an important one ; and, for the present, the question 

 regarding the identity of botb birds remains an open one. 



It is not quite certain whether the figure published by Mr. 

 Selby in vol. vi. of ' The Naturalist's Library ' (Parrots) is 

 simply copied from Kuhl ; but very probably it was. When 

 Mr. Selby writes, " only seen in a few collections," this was 

 certainly but a mere phrase. The figure he gives proves that 

 it was not taken from a specimen. In this figure the median 

 tail-feathers are of a most brilliant blue, instead of dark green, 

 and the colour of the nuchal band is a pale sulphur-yellow, 

 instead of the dark fulvous yellow it ought to be. Also his 

 indication of South Africa being the habitat is a mere hazard- 

 ous assertion. 



Kuhl's figure in the Nov. Act. Leop. is also a very poor 

 one, and not in accordance with the description he gives. 

 The obsolete greenish-blue colour of the uropygium and upper 

 tail-coverts, as well as the fine yellow colour of the neck, are 

 altogether false. 



Up to the year 1876 the "Psittacus swindernianus" of 

 Kuhl was not to be found, so far as I know, in any collection 

 of Europe or America. It was certainly therefore a most 

 interesting fact, that one of the collectors of Dr. H. Dohrn, 



