520 LORY 



been referred to a considerable number of genera, of which Ededus, 

 Loriiis (the Domkella of some authors), Eos, and Chalcopsittacus may- 

 be here particularized, while under the equally vague name of 

 Lorikeets may be comprehended the genera Cliarmosyna, Loriculus, 

 and Coriphilus. By most systematists some of these forms have 

 been placed far apart, even in different Families of Fsittad, but 

 Garrod shewed {Froc. Zool. Soc. 1874, pp. 586-598, and 1876, 

 p. 692) the many common characters they possess, which thus goes 

 some way to justify the relationship implied by their popular 

 designation. Perhaps the most complete account of these birds is 

 that of Count T. Salvadori {Ornitol. Fapuas. parte i. Torino : 1880 ; 

 Agg'mnte, 1889), who has subsequently treated of them technically 

 {Cat. B. Br. Mus. xx. London: 1891). Of the genus Ededus the 

 Italian naturalist admits six species, namely, E. pedoralis and 

 E. roratus (which are respectively the polyddorus and grandis of 

 most authors), E. cardinalis (otherwise intermedius), E. westermani, 

 and E. corneUa — all no doubt from the Papuan Subregion, 

 though the precise habitat of the last two is unknown — as well 

 as E. riedeli, from Cera or Seirah, one of the Tenimber 

 group, of which Timor Laut is the chief, to the south-west of New 

 Guinea, first described by Dr. A. B. Meyer (Froc. Zool. Soc. 1881, 

 p. 917).^ Much interest was excited by the discovery in 1873, by 

 the traveller and naturalist last named, that the birds of this genus 

 possessing a red plumage were the females of those wearing green 

 feathers. So unexpected a disclosure announced by him on the 

 4th of March 1874,^ naturally provoked not a little controversy, 

 for the difference of coloration is so marked that it had even been 

 proposed to separate the Green from the Red Lories generically ; ^ 

 but now the truth of his assertion is generally admitted, and the 

 story is very fully told by him in a note contributed to Gould's 

 Birds of New Guinea (part viii. 1st October, 1878), though several 

 interesting matters therewith -connected are still undetermined. 

 Among these is the question of the colour of the first plumage of 

 the young, a point not without important signification to the 

 student of phylogeny.* 



Though the name Lory has long been used for the species of 

 Ededus, and other genera related thereto, some writers would 

 restrict its application to the birds of the genera Lorius, Eos, 



^ There seems just a possibility of this, however, proving identical with 

 either B. westermani or U. eornelia — both of which are very rare in collections. 



2 Verhandl. z.-b. Gesellsch. Wien, 1874, p. 179 ; and Zool. Garten, 1874, 

 p. 161. 



3 Proe. Zool. Soc. 1857, p. 226. 



* The chemical constitution of the colouring matter of the feathers in Eclectiis 

 has been treated by Dr. Krukenberg of Heidelberg ( Vergl. physiol. Stud. Reihe 

 ii. Abth. i. p. 161 reprinted in Mitthcil. Orn. Ver. Wein, 1881, p. 83). 



