INSESSORES. 73 



Sp. 433. EUPHEMA ELEGANS, Gould. 



Elegant Grass-Parrakeet. 



Nanodes elegans, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part v. p. 25. 

 Gool-ye-der-ung , Aborigines of the lowlands of Western Australia. 

 Ground Parrakeet of the Colonists. 



Euphema elegans, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. v. pi. 38. 



Although closely resembling in size and form the Blue- 

 banded Grass-Parrakeet, this species differs from it in several 

 minor particulars. The green colouring of its plumage is of 

 a more golden hue, and the blue frontal band extends behind 

 the eye, while in the former it reaches no farther than the 

 front : the difference in the colouring of the wing of the two 

 species is also strongly marked, being wholly blue in one, 

 while in the other the shoulders and the part near the scapu- 

 laries are green. 



As far as I could learn, the present species is never seen 

 in Tasmania, while the Blue-banded is a constant summer 

 visitant to that island ; neither is it common in New South 

 Wales, its visits to that country being apparently accidental. 

 Its proper home is Western-Austraha, over which country it 

 is generally dispersed. 



It appears to prefer the barren and sandy belts bordering 

 the coast, but occasionally resorts to the more distant in- 

 terior. Elocks were constantly rising before me while tra- 

 versing the salt-marshes, which stretch along the coast from 

 Holdfast Bay to the Port of Adelaide ; they were feeding 

 upon the seeds of grasses and various other plants, which 

 were there abundant : in the middle of the day, or when dis- 

 turbed, they retreated to the thick Banksias that grow on the 

 sandy ridges in the immediate neighbom*hood, and in such 

 numbers, that I have seen those trees literally covered with 

 them, intermingled with the orange-breasted species {E. auran- 

 Ha), which, however, was far less numerous. When they rise. 



