NANODES. 167 



and nil tlte niidcr surface yeUoiO>sh-yrf>ni, sHylUlij <larkrr uit the. sides of the breast ; jianks more 

 striimjhj washed inlli yeVon- and occasidnally spotted icith crimson; under tail-corerts dull crimson, 

 narroid y I'dyed iind tipped irilli yeHon\ some of the laryer ones centred ivith yreen at tlie tips; 

 axillaries and aaier iring-cocertsbriyld crimson, onter series of the lesser under iviay-corerts yello/risli- 

 green ; edye of the iciay blue; bill jlesliy-broicu colour: feet tcliitisli-browa ; iris yelloivisli-oranye. 

 Total hnytli. in (lir jlrsli !_)'■! inches, iinng ^'H, tail .'rT, bill O'tS, tarsus O't. 



Adult FKMALK. — Resembles the adnlf male in phimny; but is uiiieli duller in colour. 



Dislnliiition. — Southern (Jueensland, New South Wales, \'ictoria, South-eastern South 

 Australia, Tasmania. 



Ml'-SSRS. N'igors and Horsheld founded the f,'enus Niiiiodcs, and in the "Transactions of 

 the Linnean Society of London " ■ remark: — "The present Australian group of Ground 

 Parrakeets, include Naiiodis, Platvceiriis and f't-r.oponis." In the " Catalogue of Birds in the 

 British Museum," Count SaKadon places Naiiodc'^ in the Sub-family Pi.atvcekcix.i;, and of the 

 Australian genera, between Ncopheiiia and Mc/upslttaiiis, which is followed by Pczoponis and 

 Givpsittdi us. The two latter are essentially terrestrial genera, and Platvircrais, Nivphtiiin and 

 Melopsiitiniis are both terrestrial and arboreal. In habits and actions there is nothing to 

 distinguish Naiiodi's Jisiolor from the different members of the genera Triihoglossns and 

 Glossofsiitiuiis, and it is strictly an arboreal species, obtaining its normal food, the nectar 

 of flowers, from the blossom of the Euca/ypti in a similar manner to other Australian species 

 of the family TkicHin.i.ossiD.i:. The range of the Swift-tlying Parrakeet extends throughout 

 Southern Queensland, New South \Vales and Victoria, with the adjoining portions of South 

 Australia ; it also inhabits Tasmania. In the Australian Museum Collection there are specimens 

 obtained by the late Mr. George Barnard on the Dawson River, Queensland, by Dr. E. P. 

 Ramsay at Ashfield, near Sydney, in fune 1S65, and by ^Ir. George Masters and Mr. K. 

 Broadbent in different parts of Tasmania. 



There is the usual \ariation in the plumage, as in other species of Parrakeets. Que adult 

 male now before me has some of the green feathers of the breast tipped, and others narrowly 

 edged with crimson. Another has the entire plumage of the under surface, except the crimson 

 throat, strongly suffused with yellow. 



In Victoria, in my early collecting days, the Swift-flying Parrakeet was one of the commonest 

 species to be found almost anywhere in the vicinity of Melbourne when the various species of 

 Eucalypti were in blossom, and among other localities that might be particularly mentioned are 

 Albert Park, St. Kilda, Toorak, and Qakleigh. I also found it abundant at Western Port, and 

 observed it on Mount Wellington, near Hobart, Tasmania. In New South Wales Dr. Ramsay 

 used to obtain specimens at Ashfield in 1S65-8, but I have never observed it during a long 

 residence in the same locality, or in any other of the suburbs of Sydney. In June, 1910, however, 

 specimens were received in the flesh by the Trustees of the .'\ustralian Museum, procured by 

 Mr. A. M. N. Rose at Campbelltown, twenty miles from the metropolis. 



• Dr. L. Holden, while resident in Tasmania, wrote me as follows ; — " Mr. E. D. Atkinson 

 picked up a specinren of Lathaniis discolov at Boat Harboui, having killed itself by flying against 

 a telegraph wire. At Bellerive, near Hobart, on the 5th September, 1S97, I saw several of 

 these birds flying about from tree to tree, feeding on the blossom of some Blue Gums on the 

 opposite side of the road, and knock-ed one down with a stone. These Parrakeets were about 

 Bellerive all the spring of 1897. In the spring of I'^cj^i, on the banks of the Derwent River, 

 just above New Norfolk, a boy was shooting Parrakeets out of the Gum trees on his father's 

 farm, to lessen the damage they did to the fruit crops. I examined the string of birds he had, 



* Trans. Linn. Soc, Vol. XV , pp. 274-5 (1826). 



