43 



10. Call.eas olivascens, Pelzeln. 



I cannot admit Herr von Pelzeln's bird described under the above name 

 {Trans. Zool. Bot. Soc, 1867, p. 317), to be a good species. The description 

 is founded on a specimen collected at Auckland by Mr. Zelebor, and the diag- 

 nostic charactei-s vs^hich distinguish it from C. cinerea, are the brownish olive 

 colour of the back, wings and tail, the greyish olive of the uuder parts, its 

 greater size, and the "dusky colour of the mouth caruncles." The dusky black 

 colour of the wattles is worthless as a distinguishing feature, for these fleshy 

 appendages, which are of a brilliant blue in the living bird, fade in death and 

 entirely change colour in the dried specimen, becoming almost black. The 

 sexes vary in size, and the peculiarity of coloration to which Von Pelzeln 

 attaches specific value is characteristic of the female. 



11. Platycercus Nov^ Zelandi.e, Sparrm. 



Our worthy President, the Hon. Mr. Mantell, in his Anniversary Addi-ess, 

 refers to "the lamentable confusion inseparable from the attempt to determine 

 species from the dried and distorted specimens in antipodean museums." 



A striking instance of this is afibrded in the number of "species" which 

 stuffed examples of our common little Parrakeet {Platycercus Nova Zelandice) 

 have been made to represent. 



The type of Mr. Gray's Platycei'cus Cooki, in the British Museum, is 

 described as not distinguishable from ordinary specimens of Platycercus Novce 

 Zelandice, except that the red ear spots are rather faint, while the beak is a 

 little stronger and blacker towards the point. Dr. Finsch states " that this 

 distinction in the colour of the beak was taken by Gray as the chief ground 

 for separating the species," and adds, that in another example of the so-called 

 PI. Gooki, in the Heine Museum, "the beak exhibits the usual colour." 



An unusually small example of this biixl was characterized by Prince C. L. 

 Bonaparte as PI. AucManclicus. Another example, presenting some slight 

 differences in the details of its colouring, was described by Verreaux as PI. 

 Saisetti ; and another, of a lighter green plumage than ordinary specimens, 

 became PI. erythrotis. 



Platycercus Rayneri, Gray, founded on a single specimen in the British 

 Museum, does not differ at all in colour from the typical species, the only 

 distinction being the " wider tail feathers." 



Dr. Finsch, after enianerating a lai-ge series of specimens that had come 

 under his inspection, very properly concludes : — " It appears to me impossible 

 to make more than one well-defined species out of all the above." But at the 

 same time, Dr. Finsch (with some apparent leluctance) raises Forster's bird to 

 the rank of a distinct species, PI. Forsteri, simply because of the accidental 

 absence of the red thigh-spots. He observes, " Gray unites, improperly, this 



