76 DR. H. BURMEISTER ON CONURUS HILARIS [Jan. 15, 



These three skins enable me to give the following full description. 



Beginning with the size, I find that the living specimen I examined 

 must have been very young, and by no means fully adult, as the 

 three skins now under my inspection are all larger. The two largest 

 measure from the front to the tip of the tail 13 inches, and the 

 smaller specimen (from Salta) 12 inches, tail 6| inches, and the 

 wings 7|-7|. 



The predominating colour is pure green, somewhat darker on the 

 upperside, more especially on the head and neck, but clearer on the 

 underside ; the wing- and tail-feathers are of the same colour outside, 

 both with black shafts, and the former with a blackish interior margin 

 inclining to blue. The inside of these above-mentioned feathers is 

 yellowish grey, darker on the margins, and the yellow colour clearer 

 on the tail-feathers towards the base, which in some specimens are 

 of an orange appearance. 



There is no red on these feathers in any of the three specimens ; 

 but it is possible that when alive it may have had this colour, if not 

 very distinct, at least visible. I find in one of these specimens a 

 red spot on two of the tail-coverts, which are generally completely 

 green. 



The red colour is regular only on the front of the head, beginning 

 from the base of the upper mandible, extending up to and behind the 

 eye ; but a small space of green appears over the middle of the eye, 

 and descends on the cheeks to the ear and the under mandible, 

 with some green feathers near the angle of the mouth. 



At first these red feathers are very small and of a dark red- 

 brown, and thence the others become blood-red. Besides this regular 

 frontal patch there are other red feathers on other parts of the 

 body, but without any constant regularity in different specimens of 

 the same species. I find in my three examples great difference in 

 the distribution of these red feathers. 



There generally seem to exist some red feathers on the neck, 

 front of the throat, and breast ; also there is always a circle of red 

 feathers at the end of the tibia. 



As to the habits and manner of living of this bird, I cannot add 

 any thing to what I have already said at the commencement of this 

 communication. It lives only in the northern mountainous dis- 

 tricts of the Argentine Republic, never coming to the plains of the 

 Pampas. 



I take this occasion to correct some mistakes made by Dr. Finsch 

 in his work, respecting my previous communications on different 

 species of Parrots of this country and of Brazil. 



The author says (vol. i. p. 1 74) that he knowns nothing of the 

 spines on the sides of the tongue of the Arce, mentioned by me in 

 my work on the Animals of Brazil. In that work (vol. ii. p. 152) 

 I described the tip of the tongue of this genus as like a stalk in 

 iorm (stcingelformiff). But this German word was a mistake of my 

 printers. I wrote " stiimpelformig " (shaped like a pestle), com- 

 paring the thick fleshy tongue of the Arce (although not entirely 



