on Weber's Lorikeet.



247



not quite new to aviculture. The unknown bird was very

carefully described to me, but I could make nothing of it, as

no bird in the National Collection agreed with the descrip¬

tion, though it was not very unlike Trickoglossus hcsmatodes.

Description having failed to enable me to identify the bird,

Mrs. Johnstone went to the trouble of preparing a water-colour

sketch, but even this did not help me much in my endeavours

to find out what it actually was, though I was still inclined to

think it might be T. hcematodes, possibly immature as it possessed

too little blue on the face for the adult of that species. At

length, one morning the bird was discovered dead, and the body

kindly forwarded to me. I immediately had the skin prepared,

and took it to the British Museum, where however I found

nothing whatever like it, and concluded that it must either be a

species described since the Catalogue oj Birds was published

(1891), or a species entirely new to science. I may remark here

that it was said to have come from Macassar, Celebes ; but if so

it must, I think, have reached there by human aid, as the species

which I have since discovered that it belongs to, is not known to

occur there.


There are one or two species mentioned in the Hand List

of Birds that have been described since the Catalogue was

written, and by looking up the references I soon discovered Mrs.

Johnstone’s bird to belong to one of these, namely Psitteuteles

weberi from Flores, a species described by Biittikofer in 1894, in

Max Weber’s Zoologische Ergebnisse einer Reise in Niederldndisch

Ost-Indien , and beautifully figured by Keulemaus.


In the Novitates Zoolo^icce for 1898 (Vol. V. p. 43) Mr.

Hartert writes of Psitteuteles weberi: “Of this excellent species,

hitherto only represented by the specimens in the Leyden

Museum, Mr* Everett has sent a fine series from Endeh and

from Mangarai, from the lowlands up to 4,000 feet above the sea.

The specimens agree perfectly with Buttikofer’s description and


figure.The much larger bill, the green head with


bluish forehead in the old bird, the yellowish collar on the hind-

neck, and the wide yellowish band across the chest distinguish

P. weberi at a glance from P. euteles."


Professor Mivart, in his Monograph of the Loriidae (1896),



