P A U H T. 



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occupies only a half; but the head, body, tail, and 

 wings, an- well proportioned ; and it is a remarkably 

 pleasing l)ird to look at. In the living bird, the bill, 

 \\hieh is rather small and handsome, is of a rich 

 golden yellow, but, as is very apt to be the case with 

 bills, it fades to a much duller colour after the bird is 

 dead ; the feathers on the head and throat are stiff 

 and awl-shaped, and of a fine purplish blue, which 

 changes its colours as the light falls differently upon 

 it ; on the throat the feathers lose their pointed 

 character, and on the breast their terminations are 

 flat curves ; the lower part of the neck and the breast 

 are deep red, passing into rich yellow toward the 

 shoulders ; the middle of the belly is rich purple, and 

 the feathers toward the sides deep red, bordered with 

 bright green ; the feathers on the legs are bright red, 

 and the under tail-coverts are red at, the base, yellow 

 at the middle, and green at the tips ; the under sides 

 of the wings are also red ; the upper plumage is 

 bright green in its general tint, but the feathers on 

 the lower neck are red at the bases and yellow at the 

 tips ; above these there is a dcmi-collar, more or less 

 distinct, sometimes pure yellow and sometimes in- 

 clining to green ; four feathers in the middle of the 

 tail are entirely green, and the remaining ones have 

 their inner webs yellow, the portion of yellow in- 

 creasing as the sides are approached ; the quills are 

 dusky green on their inner webs, and each is marked 

 by a yellow spot. These very beautiful birds are 

 natives of Australia, where they sip the honey from 

 the flowers of various species of euealyptous trees, 

 which are very common in the forests there. It does 

 not appear that they eat kernels of any kind, or do 

 the smallest harm to the plantations of the colonists ; 

 and as they are quite harmless in wild nature, so they 

 will not live for any length of time in a state of con- 

 finement. The colonists about Sydney have been 

 remarkably successful in cutting down the forests of 

 eucalyptus, and, by necessary consequence, they have 

 equally thinned the numbers of these beautiful birds. 



I'aiit-coltnu-cd I,unkccl (T. rerx/cotor). This is 

 another handsome Australian species, but it would 

 seem that the vocabulary was exhausted before it got 

 its name, as its plumage is much less diversified 

 than that of the preceding one. The bill and top of 

 the head in this one are red ; the throat, and a brush 

 of pointed leathers behind the eye, yellow ; a brush 

 of the same kind of feathers, beginning from the bill 

 to the eye, and extending to the lower neck, are 

 blue ; the lower neck and breast are deep but dull 

 red ; and all the rest of the plumage is dark green. 

 As is the case with many others of the family, the 

 caterers for museums have got the skin of this bird, 

 and, in their own appropriate language, they have 

 "set it up;" but of its manners nothing is known. 

 The probability, however, is, that, from the similarity 

 of structure between its bill and tongue and those of 

 the last species, it also lives principally upon the 

 honey which it extracts from flowers. 



Oftmge-wmged Lorikeet (T. pyrrhopterus). Tins is 

 a small species, not exceeding seven inches and a 

 half in total length, of which between two and three 

 are occupied by the tail ; but it is a pretty little bird. 

 The bill is whitish, with a slight tinge of pink, and 

 the upper mandible projects far over the under one, 

 and is very sharp at the tip ; and the edges of the 

 bill are more margined than in some of the larger 

 species ; there is a white space round the eye, the 

 iiis of which is brown ; the head is greenish blue, 



fading into whitish on the upper neck, and again into 

 green, which is tho general colour of the body, but. 

 the whUish colour makes a sort of holly collar on 

 the neck ; the wings are greenish-blue on the under 

 sides, with the exception of the smaller coverts 

 there, which are very bright orange, or fire colour ; 

 the upper sides of the wings and the tail are green 

 and yellow, and the feet are dull reddish. 



This is a very seaward bird, being most plentiful 

 in the Sandwich Islands ; and when the late king and 

 queen of those islands came to England, where they 

 unfortunately lost their lives, they brought some of 

 these birds along with them. This gave the zoolo- 

 gists of the day an opportunity of examining the 

 birds, and also of settling their locality, whicii had at 

 first been erroneously supposed to be South America. 

 " In their manner," says Mr. Vigors, "they are pecu- 

 liarly interesting. Strongly attached to each other,- 

 like the individuals of the small species so well known 

 in our collections, and which we familiarly style lure- 

 birds, they assert an equal claim to that title, if it is to 

 be considered the reward or the distincive sign of 

 affection. They will not admit of being separated 

 even for a moment; and, whether in their cage or at 

 liberty, every act and movement of the one has a refe- 

 rence to the acts and movements of the other. They 

 are lively, active, and familiar, distinguishing and fol- 

 lowing those who attend to them with perfect confi- 

 dence, but always in concert. Their movements are 

 less constrained than those of parrots in general, 

 approaching, both on the ground and on the wing, to 

 the quick pace and short and rapid flight of the more 

 typical perchers. They have apparently less power 

 of voice than the greater part of the family, uttering 

 only a sort of chirrup like that of the sparrow. This 

 is shrill, it must be confessed, at times when rivalship, 

 or any particular incitement, induces them f o exert it 

 to the utmost ; but at other times it is far from un- 

 pleasing, more especially when they employ it. as is 

 their custom, either in welcoming the approach of 

 the morning or acknowledging the attentions of 

 favourites. 



Somewhat allied to these last-mentioned species 

 in appearance and structure, are several little 

 parrots scattered over the groups of islands in the 

 Pacific. They are, generally speaking, characterised 

 by the small size of the bill, which, however, still re- 

 tains the parrot form ; and by the appendage* to the 

 tongue, which are long and surround the apex of that 

 organ much in the same manner as the petals of a 

 Mower. Generally speaking, they are birds of power- 

 ful wing for their size, and their ta'ds are very stout, 

 rounded in the general outline of the extremity, and 

 also in the tips of the individual feathers, and strongly 

 supported by coverts. The coverts of the wings have 

 the scalv character of parrot's feathers,- but the cloth- 

 ing 1 of the body is loose and silky. Though decidedly 

 of the parrot family, from the form of the bill, even- 

 species of these appears to require a distinct generic 

 situation. We might perhaps be prepared to expect. 

 this, inasmuch as the birds live far apart from each 

 other, and as the islands of the Pacific differ greatly 

 in their characters; but the data are still too 

 scanty for enabling us to form any thing like a correct 

 natural history of those singular parts of the world. 

 Authors have called one of the forms Cori/if/ifus, and 

 another Psiflaculits, and we shall neither dispute the 

 names nor question the propriety of their application. 

 .v Coripliilus (C. KYililii), This is a native of 



