Order PSITTACIFOBMES.l 



[Family PSITTACID^E. 



CYANORHAMPHIIS UNICOLOR.* 



(ANTIPODES-ISLAND PARRAKEET.) 



Platycercus unicolor (Vigors), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. i., p. 148. 



I have mentioned in ' The Birds of New Zealand ' (vol. i., pp. 148, 149) the interesting cir- 

 cumstance of the re-discovery of this lost species on Antipodes Island by Captain Fairchild, 

 half a century after the type specimen had been placed on the shelves of the British Museum. 

 On a later visit of the ' Hinemoa ' to the same island, the crew obtained a number of 

 them, which were brought to New Zealand alive. They bear confinement well, and soon 

 become tame and tractable. The male bird has a conspicuously larger bill than the female. 

 The irides are cherry-brown in colour, and the feet are dull-grey. 



On Antipodes Island these birds were found frequenting the grass tussocks, and were 

 easily run down and caught by the hand or by means of a neck-snare. 



Sir James Hector records his belief (I.e., p. 149) that this Parrakeet resembles a Kakapo, 

 being " a ground Parrakeet, which flies feebly, does not care to perch, climbs with its beak 

 and feet, and walks in the same waddle-and-intoed fashion as the Kakapo;" and a scientific 

 correspondent in England, to whom I sent a pair of live ones, writes me that it seems " far 

 more like a Gormrus than a Platycercus." But, although I have made a careful comparison 

 between the bones of the two species, I cannot find that the sternum of Gyanorhamphus 

 unicolor differs in any respect from that of G. novce-zealandice, except as to size. 



Antipodes Island — a mere rock in the ocean, 640 miles from Port Chalmers in a southerly 

 direction — is the only known spot on the face of our globe inhabited by this Parrakeet. 

 One can understand how, under the laws of evolution, isolation for perhaps many centuries 

 has enabled this bird to develop its specific characters of form and colour. But how about 

 Gyanorhamphus erythrotis, living alongside it in the same island-home, and so slightly differen- 

 tiated from G. novce-zealanclice that some ornithologists regard them as one and the same 

 species ? The only explanation I can offer is in a theory of colonisation at a later period 

 of time, but sufficiently remote to account for a certain amount of divergence from the 

 parent stock. The differences consist in an appreciably larger size, with paler irides, and a 

 colder shade of green throughout the plumage, in having the red patch on the vertex much 

 reduced in extent and mixed with the green, the line of red from the bill to the eye nar- 

 rower, and the extension beyond reduced to a mere point. These are just such changes 

 and modifications as would naturally mark the gradual transition from Cyanorhamphiis novce- 

 zealanclicB to G. unicolor. 



Owing to the uniform colour of the plumage, and the delicate shades through which 

 the green passes, being lightest and brightest on the forehead, Gyanorhamphus unicolor is, 

 to my mind, the prettiest of the whole group. I remember being struck many years ago with 



* Dr. Sharpe has included this species in his ' Handlist,' under the name of Pezoporus fairchildi, Hector. His 

 acquaintance with the literature of the subject ought surely to have told him that Sir James Hector applied 

 this name to the form that appears on a former leaf of the ' Handlist ' as Gyanorhamphus unicolor. (Cf. ' Trans. 

 N. Z. Inst.,' vol. vi., p. 121.) I confess, however, that the learned author's treatment of the subject, without a 

 hint that the bird described by him was already known as G. unicolor, was calculated to mislead anyone. 



Vol. ii.— 11 



