THE PARADISE PARROT TRAGEDY 175 



Although nothing was known in England, then, 

 concerning the Paradise Parrot's curious habit of 

 nesting in termites' mounds, this practice was more 

 or less familiar to certain Queensland settlers many 

 years before the date of Greene's book. To them 

 the bird was, variously, the Ground Parrot, Ground 

 Rosella, Beautiful Parrot, Elegant Parrot, and Ant- 

 hill Parrot, to which multitude of titles was added 

 later the name of Scarlet-shouldered Parrot. In 

 many districts it was a favorite cage-bird, though 

 perhaps no more so than outside its own country. 



The Barnard family, of Coomooboolaroo, near 

 Rockhampton, were among the first people with or- 

 nithological leanings to take note of the nesting- 

 habits of the "Ant-hill" Parrot. When Carl Lum- 

 holtz, the Norwegian author of Among Cannibals, 

 was at Duaringa in 1881, he was introduced by the 

 Barnard boys to the burrows of the beautiful bird 

 in termites' mounds, and of these he penned an in- 

 teresting description. On another occasion, near the 

 Nogoa River, Lumholtz had an experience with a 

 pair of these birds that deserves to be revived from 

 the semi-obscurity of his book. 



"An hour before sunset," he says, "I left the camp 

 with my gun, and soon caught sight of a pair of 

 these Parrots, male and female, that were walking 

 near an ant-hill, eating grass-seed. After I had shot 

 the male the female flew up into a neighboring tree. 

 I did not go at once to pick up the dead bird the 

 fine scarlet feathers of the lower part of its belly, 

 which shone in the rays of the setting sun, could 

 easily be seen in the distance. Soon after, the female 

 came flying down to her dead mate. With her beak 



