214 FAUNA OF WESTERN AUSTRALIA 



roseicapilla, with brilliant rose-coloured breast and grey 

 back and wings is abundant enough, especially about 

 Champion Bay, and Gascoyne River. 



A kind of crested paroquet, the cockatiel {Callopsittacus 

 novcs kollandice), with plumage of grey and yellow and 

 white markings on the head and wings, is found in many 

 localities, and is a great favourite with the colonists on 

 account of its gentle ways and pleasing tricks ; and this 

 parrot and the rose-breasted cockatoo are two of the 

 kinds most frequently kept in their houses as pets. The 

 cockatiel frequently manifests great affection for its 

 master ; and has been known to pine to death when the 

 hand which used to feed it has been suddenly removed by 

 death. 



The most gorgeous plumaged of the parrots in the 

 Champion Bay region is the Rosella paroquet, which 

 seems to me to be a mere variety of the Rose Hill parrot 

 of Gippsland {Platycoreus eximius\ a bird which, I am 

 told by some brother naturalists, is confined to South 

 Australia and Tasmania ; but as they have not seen the 

 Champion Bay variety, I think they may be wrong, and 

 that the bird has a greater range than is supposed. At 

 any rate, there is no more difference between the two 

 birds than is common in widely scattered varieties of a 

 species. 



In its habits the Rosella greatly resembles the grass 

 paroquets, and is quite as often seen on the ground as on 

 trees, and is not infrequently seen perched on the back of 

 cattle, where it evidently searches for the parasites which 

 infest the hides of the animals. For this parrot is nearly 

 omnivorous, and will eat animal food as freely as it does 

 grain. The farmers say it does much mischief to their 

 corn-crops ; but I have proved conclusively that it is not 

 grain only that attracts it to ground that is under 

 cultivation. It preys largely on the larvae of insects of the 

 grasshopper kind, which also? prefer to haunt cultivated 

 ground, probably on account of its looseness. The farmers 

 are therefore in error in destroying this bird, which they 

 do without mercy. Many are caught in traps baited with 



