98 BIRDS or AUSTRALIA. 



Genus PTILOSCLERA, Bonaparte. 



This term has been proposed by Bonaparte for the Tricho- 

 glossus versicolor of Vigors j I think the separation a judicious 

 one, and beheve that other species of the form will be found 

 to inhabit the islands lying to the northward of Australia. 



Sp. 447. PTILOSCLERA VERSICOLOR. 



Varied Lorikeet. 



Trichoglosms versicolor, Vig. in Lear*s 111. Psitt., pi. 36. 

 Psitteuteles versicolor, Bonap. Rev. et Mag. de Zool., 1854, p. 157. 

 Ptilosclera versicolor, Bonap. Compt. Rend, de I'Acad. Sci., 1857. 

 Conurus lori scintillatus, Bourj. de St.-Hil. Perr., tab. 52. 

 Coriphilus versicolor, G. R. Gray, List of Spec, of Birds in Coll. Brit. 



Mus., part iii. sec. ii. p. 59. 

 W e-ro-ole. Aborigines of Port Essington. 



Trichoglossus versicolor, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. v. 

 pi. 51. 



There is no Australian species of the little honey-feeding 

 Lorikeets yet discovered with which the present could be con- 

 founded ; it is at once rendered conspicuously distinct from 

 all its allies by the narrow stripe of yellow down the centre of 

 the feathers of the upper and under surface. The red of the 

 crown and the varied tints of blue and yellow about the sides 

 of the face and ear-coverts render it remarkably different from 

 all other Lorikeets; the red patch on the chest also is an 

 additional feature by which it is distinguished from them ; for 

 although red on this part of the body is not unusual, in no 

 other instance are the feathers streaked down the centre with 

 yellow. 



The northern coast is the only part of the country in which 

 it has as yet been discovered ; it is particularly abundant at 

 Port Essington, where its suctorial mode of feeding leads it, 

 like the other members of the genus, to frequent the flowery 



