INSESSORES. 69 



coverts rich deep blue ; lower part of the abdomen and thighs 

 scarlet ; middle tail-feathers blue ; the outer ones bluish green, 

 passing into very pale blue at their tips ; all the tail-feathers, 

 except the four middle ones, crossed by a band of black near 

 the base ; remainder of the plumage deep grass-green ; bill 

 horny brown ; legs wood-brown. 



The female is attired in a similar style of colours, but is 

 much less brilliant, has the throat and breast yellowish brown, 

 and only an indication of the bands on the occiput and wing- 

 coverts. 



Sp. 431. PSEPHOTUS H^EMATONOTUS, Goidd, 



Red-rumped Parrakeet. 

 Platycercus hamafonotus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part v. p. 151. 



Psephotus haematonotus, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. v. 

 pi. 36. 



This species inhabits the interior of the south-eastern divi- 

 sion of the Australian continent ; it is abundantly dispersed 

 over the Liverpool Plains, and all the open country to the 

 northward as far as it has yet been explored ; it also inhabits 

 similar tracts of country in Victoria and South Australia ; on 

 the plains around Adelaide it is seldom seen, but as the tra- 

 veller advances towards the interior every succeeding mile 

 brings him in contact with it in greater numbers. It is more 

 frequently seen on the ground than among the trees ; and it 

 evidently gives a decided preference to open grassy valleys and 

 the naked crowns of hills, rather than to the wide and almost 

 boundless plain. During winter it associates in flocks, vaiying 

 from twenty to a hundred in number, which trip nimbly 

 ever the ground in search of the seeds of grasses and other 

 plants, with which the crops of many that were shot were 

 found to be distended. In the early morning, and not unfre- 

 quently in other parts of the day, I have often seen hundi-eds 

 perched together on some leafless limb of a Eucalyptus, sitting 



