in the '■^ Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles.'* 121 



species of this group are of rare occurrence. I have met with 

 specimens of them only in the British Museum; and there only 

 I believe the greater part of them are still to be found.* These 

 specimens are not in the best preservation, but they evidently 

 accord with the characters I have assigned them, as may be judged 

 from the figures given of ihem iu a preceding volume of this jour- 

 nal. But although these species are rare, the Plat. Paci/icus has 

 become of late very abundant in our collections, and I have thus 

 been enabled to speak with certainty as to its characters. I have 

 had a living specimen for months in my collection, and have 

 besides seen numbers alive in this town; where they have been 

 the subject of general admiration, not merely on account of the 

 length of their tarsi and the consequent activity and freedom'in 

 running and jumping which so strongly distinguishes them from 

 the generality of Parrots, but on account of the equally dis- 

 tinguishing breadth and depression of the tail.+ 



* Althougli it is rather a bold step to assert that any writer would describe 

 tlie diaracters of birds without having seen the birds themselves, particularly 

 when lie opposes the opinions of another writer on the same subject, I would 

 almost venture to suggest that the writer in the " Dictionnaire'^ had never seen 

 the birds in question. M. Kuhl described these species from the speciniens 

 in the British Museum; and looking only to the one conspicuous character, 

 the length of the tarsi, he classed them with the Fez. formosus, 111., which is 

 distinguished by its length of limb. He was not aware that all the Peiruches 

 a /flr^e juen* have elevated tarsi: and that the species alluded to would thus 

 have more properly been arranged in that group on account of the form of 

 their tail. Now it appears probable that the writer in the '■'• Diclionnairc'^ 

 looked, not to the birds, but to M. Kuhl's Monograph; and finding them ar- 

 ranged with a bird that has a narrow cuneated tail, he took it for granted that 

 their tails must also be " aiguees et pointues." Whatever may have been the 

 cause, he certainly is in errour respecting the fact. 



+ It happens by a rather curious coincidence of circumstances that the only, or 

 at least the best known group in Ornithology which has been formed by M. 

 Desmarest, has a name derived from the same source as Platycercus. I allude 

 to his genus Plalyrkynchus. It also happens, that the same characters, mutatis 

 mutandis, would answer for both members that respectively supply the names. 

 The bill of his group is broad and depressed at the base and centre, and 

 tapering towards the apex: so is the tail of my genus. A horizontal section 

 of the bill of P latyrhynehus would accurately represent the tail of Platycercus. 

 M. Desmarest ought to be more cautious than to permit a censure to pass 

 under his authority upon a mode of nomenclature which is sanctioned by his 

 own practice. 



