PTILOSCLEKA. 



47 



may be seen feeding on the nectar of the various Eucalyptus in company with the Blue-belHed 

 Lorikeet. It is a good talker, but is a quarrelsome bird when nesting. I have on many occasions 

 seen several locked together lighting until they gradually reached the ground. I remember 

 upon two occasions my son running up and placing his hat o\er them before they could release 

 their grip of one another." 



" The first nest of 7';7i7;.n'/ciss«,v I'ldori'h'ptdi'tu^ 1 discovered i|uite by accident, on the 3rd 

 June, I'Sgj, as I would not think of looking for them at this time of the year. I noticed a bird 

 fly direct into a hole in a branch of a dead Eucalyptus. After watching to see if it would come 

 out, 1 tapped the trunk, when out it flew, and when passing the tree in the evening I tapped the 

 trunk, and again it came out. On the blackfellow climbing the tree he found two eggs in 

 the hollow. Since then 1 ha\e taken several sets, some too much incubated to blow, and several 

 of the nesting-places contained recently hatched young birds. The nesting-places are mostly 

 high up, and some of them in dead horizontal branches would not bear the weight of the black- 

 fellow sufticiently enough for him to climb out and examine them. 1 have taken tresh eggs as 

 late as the 2.Sth September, and have seen young birds just able to fly as early as the third week 

 in June, and again in January and Eebruary." 



The late Mr. George Barnard, in sendmg me the eggs of this species, informed me that he 

 found the Scaly-breasted Lorikeet breeding in the hollow spouts of the lofty Eucalyptus in the 

 neighbourhood of the Dawson River, Queensland, and that all the nests, seven in number, taken 

 by his sons, unlike that of any other species of the family Loriidif, contained but a single 

 egg in each, which in some instances were much incubated. 



-'r^r. 



The eggs are typically rounded-ovals in form, pure white when just laid, but soon become 

 stained with the moist and decayed wood on which they are deposited, some specimens now 

 before me being of an almost pure pale coffee-brown hue; the shell is close-grained, smooth and 

 lustreless. A set of two taken by Air. George Savidge at Copmanhurst, New South Wales, on 

 the 26th July, 1S95, measure: — Length (A) i-02 x 0-82 inches; (B) 0-96 x o'.S inches. A set 

 taken in the same locality on the 28th September, 1895, measures: — Length (A) i-oi x o'8i 

 inches; (B) i-o2 x 0-78 inches. Another set taken measures : — Length (.A) 1-04 x 0-84 inches; 

 (B) I •04 X 0-82 inches. 



The breeding season is variable, commencing usually about the end of May or early in 

 June, and continues until the end of February. 



Ptilosclera versicoloro 



VARIED LORIKEET. 



Trii'/ioi/lossus vifMicolor, Vig., in Lear's III. Parr., pi. -itj (1>!32) ; Gould, Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. V., 

 pi. .51 (1S48). 



Ptilosclira rer.'iieiilin-. Gould, Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. II., p. 98 (180-")); Salvad., Cat. Bds. Brit. 

 Mus., Vol. XX., p. C>Q (1891) ; Sharpe, Hand-1. Bds., Vol. II., p. 6 (1900) ; North, Asric. 

 Gaz. N. S. Wales, Vol. XIII., p. +09 (1902) ; Salvad., Ihis, 190.'i, p. 422. 



Adult male. — Lures ami crturn of //(<- /ir ail ricit red : c/ieeks and nape deep blue, the former 

 irilli hri<iht ijelloif and tlie latter ifUli yelloirhli green slm ft stripes ; a imrroiv band on tlie occiput; 

 the interscapular region, hark and upper iviny-roverts light i/rass-green, irith i/elloivish-g reen shaft 

 stripes : ruiitji and upper tail-corerls light grass-green : liiiffealliers light green, gelloivish on their 



