SWAINSOPsTS LORIQUET 9 



sub-tropical. With very few exceptions Australian parrots 

 and cockatoos frequent only the wooded portions of the 

 land : although they are found, the cockatoos especially, 

 along the courses of rivers which have a fringe of wood on 

 their banks, though that fringe, in the west and north, is 

 often very thin. 



The first shot referred to above was at a Blue Mountain 

 parrot, a species formerly very common in the vicinity of 

 Sydney ; and I have even seen it on trees in the suburbs 

 of that city. It is the Swainson's loriquet, Trichoglossus 

 novce hollandice, of naturalists ; but though often called a 

 lory, I never heard it described locally by its true name. 

 It is still tolerably abundant in the interior parts of the 

 colony ; and its beautiful plumage does not save it from 

 being shot for the table. It is a honey-sucker, and for that 

 reason many persons think that its flesh is superior in 

 flavour to that of other parrots. 



The crop of this bird is nearly always full of a sort of 

 nectar which it extracts with its tongue from the sweet 

 blossoms of the native honeysuckle ; and probably from 

 many other flowers ; but it is a mistake to suppose, as 

 many naturalists seem to do, that it does not consume 

 more solid food ; for I have seen it eating many different 

 kinds of bush fruits. It also often eats the flowers of the 

 honeysuckle bodily ; and frequents the gardens of the 

 western settlers for the plums and cherries which they 

 delight to cultivate. 



Many of the habits of Swainson's loriquet greatly 

 resemble those of pigeons. For instance: they go in 

 pairs, and these pairs frequently join with others to form 

 small flocks of ten or a dozen couples ; and on occasions, 

 which seem to be dependent on a peculiar state of the 

 weather, they collect in large flocks of one or two thousand. 

 All these habits may be noticed in tree-frequenting species 

 of pigeons. The loriquet, as well as some other parrots, 

 flies much like a pigeon ; and when perched on a branch 

 has several similar little tricks of movement. A sudden 

 change of temperature will cause them to assemble in 

 large flocks. They then wheel round in the air, perhaps 



