BIRDS OF TASMANIA. 89 



orange at tip; legs and feet blackish. Dimensions in mm.: — 

 Length, 220; bill, 15; wing, 118-; tail, 90; tarsus, 13. 



Female. — Save that the blue on the head is less distinct, the 

 plumage is similar to that of the male. 



Nest. — Within a hole in a living or dead tree. 



Eggs. — Clutch two to four; roundish oval in shape; texture 

 fairly fine; surface without gloss; colour white. Dimensions in 

 mm. of a clutch :— (1) 24.5 x 20, (2) 25 x 20.5, (3) 24.5 x 21. 



Breeding Season. — September to December. 



Geographical Distribution.- — Tasmania, New South Wales, Vic- 

 toria, South Australia, and Queensland. 



Observations. — Of the Lorikeets and Parrakeets found in Tas- 

 mania this is the most plentiful and therefore the best known. 

 Well-timbered tracts of eucalyptus country are mostly favoured, 

 for it is there that it obtains its food. When changing its feeding 

 ground it generally leaves in large flocks and with much screech- 

 ing. During the summer of 1898 this species proved a perfect 

 nuisance in the gardens around Launceston. It was that summer 

 that bush-fires raged so fiercely in so many districts, causing great 

 mortality among many species of birds. Apples and pears hung 

 thickly on the trees in suburban gardens. One day flocks of the 

 Musk-Lorikeet " came down like a wolf on the fold," settled on 

 the laden trees, and commenced a fierce onslaught. Guns were 

 brought into requisition, and great slaughter ensued, but, nothing 

 daunted, the Lorikeets returned to the charge again and again. It 

 was not so much the actual fruit eaten as the quantity destroyed 

 and partly eaten or knocked on to the ground by the hustling birds. 

 Not only in Tasmania was damage done by this species that 

 summer, but also in New South Wales at least ; for a Sydney paper 

 remarked: — " For some time past complaints have been made in 

 different parts of the colonies of the ravages made by a small green 

 Parrakeet. This bird is known vernacularly by the name of the 

 Musk-Lorikeet. Immense flocks of these Lorikeets have devas- 

 tated entire orchards, and many thousands have been killed in the 

 Eichmond Eiver, the Hawkesbury, Illawarra, and Monaro districts, 

 but still there is no apparent diminution in their numbers as long 

 as there is any fruit left to feed upon. So tame were these birds 

 in the latter localities that numbers of them were knocked down 

 with sticks or caught by the hands while feeding in the fruit trees. 

 Shooting does not seem to deter or frighten them away, for many 

 will remain in the same tree from which probably ten or a dozen 

 have just been killed or have fluttered wounded and screeching to 

 the ground. But this pest is not confined to the country districts, 

 for in the suburbs a few miles out of Sydney they freely enter 

 gardens and devour all soft fruit, principally at the present time 

 plums and pears. Numbers, too, are snared by boys by the aid of 

 horse-hair nooses on the forked end of a long pole and the vocal 

 allurements of a captive call-bird. Unhappy birds ! a hard fate is 



