248 ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 



between the Parrakeet-Maccaws, or genus Psittacara, 

 and the Ground-Parrots of New Holland, long since 

 formed into a genus by Illiger under the name of 

 Pezoporus. 



In the form of its bill this genus evinces an approxi- 

 mation to the Maccaws, having the upper mandible 

 almost equally short and even more broadly dilated, 

 but less strongly curved and elongated at the tip, while 

 the lower is more than usually abbreviated and deeply 

 notched. It differs likewise from the other long-tailed 

 Parrakeets in the breadth, depression, and more or less 

 rounded termination of its tail ; in the shortening of the 

 first quill-feather of the wings, giving to those organs 

 also a rounded form ; and in having all its primary 

 quill-feathers, with the exception of the first, deeply 

 and abruptly notched on their outer webs near the 

 middle. An approach to this latter structure, but in 

 a less degree, is met with only in the more typical 

 Ground-Parrots, with which the present group is more- 

 over connected by the length of its legs and the slight 

 curvature of its claws. These two genera, so intimately 

 united by their geographical position, chiefly differ in 

 the dilated tail of the one compared with its wedge- 

 shaped termination in the other; in the claws being 

 somewhat more curved in Platycercus than in Pezo- 

 porus ; and in the more obvious notching of the lower 

 mandible in the former than in the latter group. 



The present bird, which appears to be most nearly 

 related to the Grand Vaza of Le Vaillant, has been 

 shown by Mr. Vigors, in a notice of the identical speci- 

 men now before us, published in the third volume of 

 the Zoological Journal, to be a true species of his genus 

 Platycercus. But he has not ventured, in the absence 

 of sufficient materials, to decide whether or not it is 

 specifically identical with the Petit Vaza of the same 



