Feb., 1908.] THE VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. 157 



one in which surprises come' thick and fast. Some years ago Mr. 

 E. E. Johnson sent twenty-six Barnard's Parrakeets to me from 

 Murtoa. I skinned and dissected them all. It was an easy 

 matter to recoa;nize each bird on account of the great variation in 

 plumage. Whilst some were remarkably brilliant, others were 

 equally dull, but, strange to say, the handsomest bird in the parcel 

 was an old female, and the most sombre one an old male. 



These remarks also apply to the Port Lincoln Parrakeet, B. 

 zonarius. Whilst in the Northern Territory with the Horn 

 Scientific Expedition, and in North-West Australia with the 

 Calvert Exploring Expedition, I shot a great many of these birds, 

 and the two most beautiful and brightly coloured specimens 

 secured proved to be an old female and a nestling scarcely able 

 to fly. Of all the rest there were no two birds exactly alike. Some 

 males had beautiful black heads, sulphur-yellow breasts, and bright 

 green backs. Occasionally a scarlet band adorned the forehead, 

 but in others the scarlet was only partial or entirely absent. In 

 several cases the heads of old birds looked as if they were fading 

 to dark brown, and all the other colours were equally modified. 

 I had two birds of tliis species in captivity for five years. They 

 were both males, and neither of them underwent any change in 

 brilliancy of plumage. That these variations are neither local nor 

 indications of age I have fairly tested. These parrots have a 

 very extensive range, and may be found from Port Lincoln in the 

 south to Tennant's Creek on the Overland Telegraph line in the 

 Northern Territory, and in the North-West I found them from 

 within a short distance of Geraldton to about the centre of the 

 desert, and, although many were shot, there were seldom two 

 birds alike ; in fact, one old female bird had the yellow breast so 

 freely interspersed with green that at first glance I mistook it for 

 P. semitorquatus. 



The genus Platycercus embraces two distinct types of birds — 

 P. elegans, Crimson Parrakeet, which changes from nearly all 

 green in its early stages, to a beautiful crimson by the time it is 

 four years old. These birds are all remarkably uniform. Then 

 we have P. exhnms, Piosella, and P.flaveohis, Yellow Parrakeet, 

 two species which vary considerably in brilliancy of colours and 

 markings. I have seen broods of six young ones of each species 

 in which the difference between the birds was so great that each 

 individual was easily identified. As time went on the same 

 difference continued, the highly coloured specimens retaining 

 their superiority over their fellows. I had some of the Yellow 

 Parrakeets under observation for six years. With regard to the 

 Rosella, many casual observers will declare them to be all alike, 

 but a closer examination modifies or contradicts the statement. 

 Whilst judging a class of twenty-seven entries of Rosellas at the 

 North Suburban Bird Show I found such a difference in the 



