120 



" T. ornatus smells, as all the allied Parrots do, very agreeably of hyacinths. They feed, 

 according to the season, on all possible fruits ; in captivity they prefer bananas above every- 

 thing, but also like rice ; they are very wild and not easy to tame quickly ; but in time they 

 get accustomed to one person. This beautiful bird is often to be seen tame on small stands 

 before the huts ; but the natives also use them as food. 



"Once I shot a specimen near Menado with quite yellow plumage, perhaps a bird escaped 

 from captivity, or an individual variety. My hunters declared it to be from the Sangi Islands ; 

 but I do not believe that the species occurs there at all." 



This bird shares with Charmosyna papuensis, and probably with Lorius lory, the dis- 

 tinction of being one of the longest known species of the whole family of Loriidse, it having 

 been figured by Seba in 1734. 



It is easily distinguished from every other species of Triclwglossus by having no coloured 

 band on the underside of the wing. 



The bird is green on all the upper parts, including the hind neck, except that yellow 

 bands on the feathers of the interscapular region cause some yellow markings there to show 

 themselves. The forehead, vertex, and ear-coverts are purple-blue, but the cheeks and chin 

 are red. There is a transverse red band on the occiput, traversed by dark blue transverse 

 lines. On each side of the neck there is a band, or elongated patch, of yellow interposed 

 between the red of the cheeks and the green of the hind neck, and sometimes running upwards 

 and forwards to a point interposed between the outermost side of the red occipital colour and 

 the purple of the ear-coverts. The throat and breast are red, crossed by transverse bluish-black 

 bands. The middle of the abdomen is green, the sides of the body yellow. The vent and 

 under tail-coverts are yellowish green, the margins of the feathers being of a green tint. 

 The quills underneath are dusky black, without any coloured band. The under wing-coverts 

 are yellow. The lateral tail-feathers underneath are yellowish, but the base of the inner web 

 is red. 



Total length 9'S inches, wing 51, tail 32, bill 0-8, tarsus 0-6. 



The colours are said to be paler in the young, especially the red on the cheeks and breast. 



"We have not been able to find any noteworthy differences between the eleven specimens 

 preserved in the British Museum. 



