Vol. XXII 



] CHISHOl.-M. The '-Lost" raradisc Parrot. 



Mr. Barnard subseciuently informed nie (June 15th, 1919) that 

 he visited Fairfield in the precedinjj^ September. The search was 

 una\ailins^. "Where, about the year 1882, the birds were plen- 

 tiful and breeding, there w-as not one to be found on this oc- 

 casion, nor any trace of old nests in the ant-hills." 



That was all. There was no other response U) Mr. Camp- 

 bell's inquiry. The Paradise Parrot, it appeared, had been 

 lost in annihilation's waste. So it seemed to ornithologists in 

 Australia, and so it seemed to Mr. Gregory Mathews in England. 

 "It is a matter for deep regret," he wrote in 191 7, § "that this 

 most beautiful of Parrots appears to have become extinct with- 

 out any lasting record of its life-history being made." Further, 

 in referring to another ['arrot, not yet uncommon, Mr. Mathews 

 advised study "before it becomes extinct like its congener, P. 

 piilcherrimus." 



That was the ])osition wlien. in the middle of 1918, the sul:)- 

 ject was taken up afresh in (Queensland, the stronghold of the 

 missing bird. Hints gathered in con\-ersation with old settlers 

 had indicated that further search would be at least worth while. 

 Accordingly, letters on the point, bearing the query-caption, "Is 

 it lost ?" were directed to and published by the leading daily 

 newspapers of Brisbane and the Darling Downs. The response 

 was prompt. It was also partially satisfactory. Most of the 

 replies received earliest dealt with the species only from a ik)s- 

 thumous viewpoint, but at last there came a note calculated to 

 dispel some of the growing fear that "the beautiful has vanished 

 and returns not." A constable of police w^ho had served for 

 fifteen months at a native police camp at Coen, Cape York, 

 identified the missing bird from a description published in the 

 Brisbane Courier, and affirmed that it was still to be found in 

 the far North. This was heartening. It was doubly interest- 

 ing for the reason that the range of the species was greatly ex- 

 tended, the most northerly record previously given being a some- 

 Mhat indefinite one, by Dr. Ramsay in his Tabular List,|| for Port 

 Denison, a little to the south of Townsville. Further inquiries 

 tended to confirm the constable's statement, the ])resent patrol 

 at Cape York stating, in an official report, that the bird was not 

 at the Cape itself, but was moderately plentiful at a certain point 

 in the neighbourhood of the Archer River. 



In addition, the constable in question made it clear that his 

 "ant-hill" bird was not the Golden-shouldered Parrot (which 

 also nests in termites' mounds) by sending the following note in 

 substantiation of his letter of a year previous : "Re the Scarlet- 

 shouldered Parrot. It makes its nest in ant-hills, from about 

 six inches from the ground to a height of about four feet up 

 the ant-hill, but I always found most nests at a height of ap- 

 proximately two feet. The average number of eggs laid is four, 

 although on one occasion I found five eggs in a nest. I have 



§ Birds of Australia, vol, 6, p. 422. 



II Proc. Linnean Society, N.S.W.. vol. 2, 1878. 



