I'Ezitroms. 



173 



^1^ '^^ range of tlie Ground, or "Swamp" Parrakeet, extends from New South Wales ri.tjht 

 JL across tlie Australian Continent to the south-western portion of Western Australia, 

 and also extends to some of the islands of Bass Strait and to Tasmania. It is, however, chielly 

 an inhabitant of the coastal districts, over which, in favourable situations, it is somewhat sparingly 

 distributed. Swamp lands, more or less covered with rushes or grass tussocks, are its usual 

 haunts, or low scrub-clothed wastes, heath lands, and less frequently it is found in open forest- 

 lands. As pointed out by Gould, it emits a strong scent, and dogs readily stand to it, as to any 

 other game-bird, its flesh being excellent for table purposes. Although it is still found in the 

 neighbourhood of Sydney, principally at the Botany Water Reserve, iNIaroubra, Long Bay and 

 the Quarantine Grounds at Manly, on the North Head of Sydney Harbour, its numbers ha\'e 

 greatly decreased of late years. In the neighbourhood of Appin, about forty miles south of 

 Sydney, Dr. E. P. Ramsay informed me this Parrakeet used to breed in the long tussocky grass 

 during September, October and November, and that the young birds afforded good sport about 

 the end of January. It must ha\e been a t;reat resort of this species, for at Madden's Plains, in 



GROOND-PAlUtAKEKT. 



the near vicinity, the late Mr. J. A. Thorpe, while collecting on behalf of the Trustees of the 

 Australian Museum in August, 18S5, brought back- with him a series of thirty-eight beautiful 

 adult skins of both sexes. As will be seen by Mr. Grant's notes, he procured the Ground- 

 Parrakeet on the Blue Mountains. In \'ictoria I noted this species at Maribyrnong, near the 

 Saltwater River, also on the Keilor Plains. In the former locality the birds were quietly feeding 

 on the grassy sward, and on my closely approaching them flew on to the top of a three-railed 

 fence, the only time I have observed this species perch. 



Mr. Robert Grant, Taxidermist of the Australian Museum, has handed me the following 

 notes : — " In my wanderings on the Blue Mountains, from Katoomba to Lithgow, I have only 

 seen the Ground Parrakeet (Pezoporns formosiis) in one place, on a swamp on Mount Edgcumbe 

 Estate, about a mile from the famous Zig-zag. In September, 1881, while going through some 

 scrub near the swamp, my dog flushed a Grijund-Parrakeet, and shortly afterwards another, 

 both of which I shot, and which proved to be male and female. About a month after I visited 

 the same spot and flushed another bird, but failed to obtain it. Those were the only occasions I 

 have ever found the Ground-Parrakeet on the Blue Mountains. I have shot it at Yarra, 



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