1H82.] MR. p. I>. SCLATER ox RUPPELL's PARROT. 577 



It approaches the figure of Scrobicularia rostrata of H. Adams 

 (Proe. Zool. Soc. 1868, pi. xxviii. f. 15), but is larger, is not so 

 coarsely sculptured, and is not merely convex, but ventricose. In 

 the same rich collection is a somewhat distorted shell marked as the 

 Thraeia (!!) trigona of the ' Samaraug ' (pi. 24. fig. 8), and possibly 

 a form of our L. spectabilis. All three, even if different, are 

 Leptoniyce. Figures of my three species will be found in the Journ. 

 Proc. Linn. Soc. Zool. 1882, vol. xvi. pi. 12. 



6. Note on Riippell's Parrot. By P. L. Sclater, M.A., 

 Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. 



[Eeceived June 15, 1882.] 



(Plate XLII.) 



In 1848 the late Mr. G. R. Gray described and figured in the 

 Society's 'Proceedings'^ a new species of Parrot from Western 

 Africa, from a specimen that had lived for about twelve months in 

 the Gardens, and proposed to call it Psittaeus rueppelli. Mr. 

 Graj' quite sufficiently described it as of a " uniform dark bronze- 

 colour, with the lesser and underwing-coverts bright yellow ; the 

 feathers of the thigh orange-yellow." 



In 1 852 the late Mr. Strickland and I met with examples of this 

 Parrot in the collection formed in Daniara-land by Mr. Andersson, of 

 which an account was given by us in Jardine's ' Contributions to 

 Ornithology ' for that year (p. 156). Finding that some of the 

 specimens procured by Mr. Andersson agreed with Mr. Gray's 

 description, while others differed in having the rump and under tail- 

 coverts margined with glaucous blue, we not unnaturally concluded 

 that the latter (being the more brightly coloured birds) were of the 

 male sex, and that Mr. Gray had described and figured a female 

 bird ". 



The same view as to the colour of the sexes in this Parrot was 

 subsequently adopted by Dr. Hartlaub (Orn. "West-Afr. p. 168); 

 while Dr. Finsch (Papag. ii. p. 498) and Schlegel (Mus. de P.-B., 

 Psittaci, p. 36) described the sexes as alike, and as both having the 

 blue colour on the rump and under tail-coverts. But, so far as I can 

 at present make out, the strange fact appears to be that in this 

 species the blue on the ruuip and under tail-coverts is the character- 

 istic oi\\\e female sex. Such at least is the case in four examples 

 of this Parrot (two of each form), which were acquired by the Society 

 in April last \ and which have since died, and have been carefully 

 dissected in our Prosector's Ofiice. In two other examples of this 



1 P. Z. S. 1848, p. 125, Aves, pi. 5. 



■^ Mr. Andersson himself, in his ' Birds of Damara Land ' (p. 215J, published 

 by Mr. Gurney in 1872, has noted that in some female examples of Posocephalus 

 rueppelli the blue colour is certainly present. 



* Vide supra, p. 421. 



