250 ON THE GENUS LORICULUS. 



LORICULUS STIGMATUS (MiilL & Schleg.)- 

 (Plate LX.) 



Coryllis stigmata, Finsch, Papag. ii. p. 694 (1868) ; Das rothstirnige Papageiclien. 

 Loriculus stigmatus, Walden, Trans. Zool. Soc. viii. p. 32 (1872) ; Schlegel, Mus. P.-B. Eev. 



Psitt. p. 60 (1874) ; Salvadori, Ann. d. Mus. Civ. d. Genova, vii. p. 645 (1875) ; 



Briiggemann, Abh. naturw. V. Bremen, v. p. 41 (1876). 



I have received some very interesting observations respecting the mode 

 of Hfe of this charming species from Dr, Meyer, who thus remarks :— 



" This bird is a common one in North Celebes. The natives of Manado, 

 the chief town of the Minahassa (i. e. the most northern part of the island), 

 who often catch the young one and bring it up, name it ' Tintis.' More to the 

 south, in the district of Gorontalo, the chief Dutch settlement on the shores 

 of the Gulf of Tomini, the natives call it, according to Rosenberg, ' Tindito ;' 

 here*it is also common, according to my experience, whereas I did not find 

 it so plentiful in the southern parts of the island. The native names of the 

 birds in these countries are of no great value, as they change in nearly every 

 province : I am sure that there are, even in the politically united district of 

 the Minahassa, more than a dozen different names for the same bird. It is 

 noteworthy that the dialects of the natives differ in such a way that a man 

 of the north shore of Celebes, from a place called Likupang, who went with 

 me up the mountains to the beautiful lake of Tondano, 2000 feet high (a 

 distance of only thirty miles), could not make himself understood there. 



" At all events, Loriculus stigmatus is spread over the greater part of the 

 whole island of Celebes ; at least, it has been found on two of the four 

 peninsulas of which this curiously-shaped island is constituted, viz. the 

 north-western and the south-western ; and it is not at all probable that it 

 should be represented by another species in those parts which unite these 

 two peninsulas. 



