GLOSSOPSITIACUS. 



51 



damage in the orchards, especially to the pears, which seem their favourite fruit. They then 

 disappeared for a fortnight or more, no doubt following the ripening of the fruit on the higher 

 ranges. By the loth May they returned in large flocks, and were in the I Slue Gums collecting 

 honey from the llowers the same as the other three species of Lorikeets tiequenting the district." 



Dr. W. A. Angove writes me from Tea-tree Gully, South Australia: — " Glassopsiiiaiiis 

 concinnus is most abundant, at times the whole district beiiiL,' alive with them. They follow the 

 tlowering of the Gums, and are most destructive to truit, especially apples. .\ fruit grower at 

 Houghton killed a large number in 1908 by poisoning the fruit with strychnine ; he gathered over 

 one thousand, which shows how numerous they are at times. .Mthough consistently hunted for, 

 # know of one nest only having been lound. This was at Mount Pleasant, in lyoy, the nesting- 

 place being situated in the hollow spout of a (jam, and a young bird was taken which is now in 

 the iinder's possession." 



Dr. L. Holden writes from Tasmania under date 12th February, 1S9S : — " Glossopsittacus 

 coihiiinui are now devastating a friend's Pear trees at Rokeby. Ordmarily we do not see them 

 here, but this has lieen a season of long drou,L;lit and large bush rires. I saw a large flock 

 yesterday in the Beltana-road. They are noisy on the wing and in the trees, but their cries are 

 not so shrill as those of Latliaiinis discolor, and their llight is much slower. Vast numbers are 

 repotted from the orchards and gardens about 1 lobart." 



Mr. Thos. 1^. Austin has kindly forwarded the fcjllowing notes from Cobborah Station, 

 Cobbora, New South Wales: — '■ .\bout March, after the breeding season is over, Glossopsitttjciis 

 coiuiiinus, accompanied by G. piisillns, arrives from the north in very large fiocks, and their harsh 

 screeching notes, heard as a few hundred of them suddenly fly from a tree, only a few feet above 

 one's head, is anything but pleasant music. I have examined many nests of this handsome little 

 bird, and upon e\ery occasion found two eggs or two young. I'"or a breeding place they usually 

 choose a very small hole, or in the elbow of a limb of a tree, mostly in living Red Gum trees 

 ( Euiahftus yostvata). Anyone wishing to know it a hole in a tree is occupied by these birds, 

 without chopping it out, if he can get his nose near the hole it will be quite suflicient, as the 

 strong musky odour will tell him. These Lorikeets appear to cultivate a taste for fruit of almost 

 any variety, and have becoiue a great pest to orchardists in many districts." 



When 1 was on a \isit to Cobborah Station, Mr. Austin climbed to a nesting-place of the 

 Musk Lorikeet, on the 12th October, 1909, in a hole in a large Red Gum about sixty feet from 

 the ground, and overhanging a bank of the Talbiagar River; on chopping a hole in the limb it 

 was in, he found a recently hatched young one in down, and an addled egg. Mr. Austin also cut 

 out two more nesting places of Parrakeets from the same tree, revealing in one four and the other 

 five recently hatched birds, but too young to ascertain to which species they belonged, but 

 probably Pscphotiis lucmatouotiis. On the following day he chopped out a nesting-place of a Musk 

 Lorikeet, in a hollow green branch of a Gum-tree forty feet from the ground, in the River Paddock, 

 which contained two incubated eggs, the latter being three feet six inches from the entrance to 

 the hole. There were also two Whistling Eagles' nests in the same tree, from one of which Mr. 

 -Austin informed me he had taken two eggs on the 17th July, 1907, and also a Raven's (Coronc 

 australis) nest, from which he took a set of six eggs on the i ith ]uly, 1908. Three young Brown 

 Plawks (Hicracidca oricntalis) were also bred in the nest during the same season, and on the 3rd 

 September, 1909, he also took from it a set of three Brown Hawk's eggs. 



On the 14th October Mr. .Vustin climbed, liy means of a rope ladder to a nesting-place of 

 the Musk Lorikeet, in a thick green hollow branch of a Red Gum, on a bank of the Talbragar 

 River. Two days before we had seen tb.e bu'd come to the entrance and then go back again. 

 After slightly enlarging the entrance, he was enabled to get his arm in the cavity, and succeeded 

 in reaching a single fresh egg, which he left. Tnis nesting place was only eighteen feet from 



