248 Zoological Society :— 
tions, we feel like Garrick in Sir Joshua’s celebrated picture, and 
hardly know whether to make choice of the tragic or the comic 
muse in criticising them. It may therefore be as well to say no 
more on the subject. 
PROCEEDINGS OF LEARNED SOCIETIES. 
ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 
June 9, 1863.—John Gould, Esq., F.R.S., in the Chair. 
On A New Species OF PARRAKEET FROM CENTRAL AUSTRALIA. 
By Joun Gou tp, F.R.S., Eerc. 
The Board of Governors of the South Australian Institute having 
liberally forwarded for my inspection a selection from the ornitholo- 
gical collection made by Mr. Frederick G. Waterhouse during Mr. 
Stuart’s late Exploratory Expedition into Central Australia, I have 
thought the matter of sufficient interest to bring these birds under 
the notice of the Society, the more so as it will enable me to make 
known through our ‘ Proceedings’ a new and very beautiful species 
of Parrakeet pertaining to the genus Polyteles, of which only two 
have been hitherto known. Every ornithologist must be acquainted 
with the elegant P. melanurus and P. Barrabandi, and I feel assured 
that the acquisition of an additional species of this lovely form will 
be hailed with pleasure. The specific appellation I would propose 
for this novelty is 4/exandre, in honour of that Princess who, we 
may reasonably hope, is destined at some future time to be the queen 
of these realms and their dependencies, of which Australia is by no 
means the most inconspicuous. 
PotyTELES ALEXANDR&, Sp. nov. 
Forehead delicate light blue; lower part of the cheeks, chin, and 
throat rose-pink ; head, nape, mantle, back, and scapularies olive- 
green; lower part of the back and rump blue, of a somewhat deeper 
tint than that of the crown ; shoulders and wing-coverts pale yellowish 
green; spurious wing bluish green ; external webs of the principal 
primaries dull blue, narrowly edged with greenish yellow, the re- 
maining primaries olive-green, edged with greenish yellow; under 
wing-coverts verditer-green ; breast and abdomen olive-grey, tinged 
with vinous ; thighs rosy red ; upper tail-coverts olive, tinged with 
blue; two centre tail-feathers bluish olive-green ; the two next on 
each side olive-green on their outer webs and dark brown on the 
inner ones ; the remaining tail-feathers tricoloured, the central por- 
tion being black, the outer olive-grey, and the inner deep rosy red ; 
under tail-coverts olive; bill coral-red; feet mealy brown. 
Total length 14 inches; bill 3; wing 7; tail 9; tarsi £. 
Habitat. Wowell’s Ponds, Central Australia, 16° 54! 7" S. L. 
Remark.—TYhis is in every respect a typical Polyteles, having the 
delicate bill and elegantly striped tail characteristic of that form. It 
