12 CHISHOLM. The -Lost" Paradise Parrot. Fi^ffuTy" 



called to the liirds hy the short and shar|) but musical whistle 

 uttered l)etore taking Hight from the ground on the approach of 

 danger. They allowed one to approach on horseback within, 

 ]jerhai)S, twenty yards before rising. Mr. Jerrard thinks that 

 the (jld birds are constant to one nesting locality year after year, 

 and that some of their (jtifs])ring subsecpiently |)air and nest in 

 l)roximity to the i)arental home. He has nexer seen one of the 

 i'arn^ts more than a mile from the sjxjt where he first discovered 

 them last year. 



DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT. 



It will, ])erhaps, be permissible now to examine the past distri- 

 bution and habitat of the Paradise Parrot, both from ])rinted 

 records and private information. Gould recorded the species 

 for both Queensland and New South Wales, but qualified this 

 distribution by stating in his Handbook (1865) : "Little more is 

 at present known respecting this bird than that it is an inhabitant 

 of the upland grassy ])lams of Oueensland." A. J. North quotes 

 this latter statement in his Xcsfs and B(/(js of Birds found Brccd- 

 in</ in Jiistralia and Tasmania, adding that though very willing 

 to claim the beautiful bird for his State, he could not find justi- 

 fication for doing so. "I have ne\er met with it nor heard of 

 it being observed in any ])art of the State," he says, and goes on 

 to regret being unable to describe the adult female bird from the 

 small series of skins in the Australian ^Museum. The late Sil- 

 vester Diggles, of Queensland, wrote of the species as being 

 "found uKJSt ])lentifully in the district of Darling Downs," add- 

 ing that it had been obtained in other i)arts of South-Western 

 Oueensland, "s|)ecimens ha\ ing l)een_ shot occasionallv near both 

 Ipswich and Brisbane." Further, I have jiersonal information 

 that the bird was ])lentiful in the P>risbane X'alley, ])articularly 

 about Crow's Nest and E.sk (at which latter i)lace it was a 

 favourite cage-bird), and that it was not uncommon to meet with 

 ])airs or small groups of the birds near Brisbane many years ago. 



From the Darling Downs, Ipswich, and l>risbnne districts the 

 distril)ution of the s])ecies ajipears to have extended in a northerly 

 rather than a westerly direction. There is a printed record of 

 specimens being taken in Western Oueensland, but I have re- 

 liable information that the si)ecies was known of old in the south- 

 western districts of C.oondiw indi and St. George. The former 

 t(»wnship being on the border of New South Wales, it is fair to 

 assume that tlie I'eautiful Parrot did reach the southern State, 

 but jirobably no one can sa\ if the di]) was ever sufiiciently ]tro- 

 nounced to justify the bird being recorded as other than a 

 (Jueonslandcr. Peaching north from the Bri.sbane district, the 

 main resort of the species was the lUnnett and Wide P.ay areas. 

 Several correspondents have made patent this fact, and all agree 

 th;it the >-pecies preferred slightlv scrubby grass-country rather 

 than open plains, .\oriherlv again, the "Ant-hill Parrot" was 



