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SRANGE-MELLIED fJARRAKEET. 



Psittacus aurantius . 

 Stnontm: Eujpliema aurantia, Gld. 



THIS chaimring bird, wliicli a recent writer considers to be a crea- 

 tion of the late John Gould's imagination, is, nevertheless, a very 

 real Parrot, or rather Parrakeet, exceedingly abundant in Van Diernen's 

 Land, and the islands in Bass's Straits, during the summer months, 

 and seldom to be met with on the Australian mainland except during 

 the winter. 



Few importations of any consequence take place from the beautiful 

 island, now called Tasmania, after its discoverer, who gave it the dis- 

 carded appellation by which it was long and unfavourably known, in 

 honour of the father of his betrothed wife, an appellation that fell into 

 disrepute, owing to the island having been used for many years as a 

 penal settlement, but which the inhabitants got rid of as soon as the 

 government of the colony was placed in their own hands. 



Van Diernen's Land, now, more euphoniously, Tasmania, is a lovely 

 and fertile island, blessed with an almost perfect climate, bat little 

 known to the overcrowded populations of the mother country, with which 

 it has fewer and less important relations than any of her colonies; to 

 which fact it is no doubt owing that so few of the many charming 

 and eminently hardy birds that abound in her forests, find their way 

 into our aviaries, and are practically unknown, not only to dealers and 

 importers of foreign birds, but even to many English and continental 

 naturalists of repute. 



The subject of the present notice, the G-ang-gang Cockatoo, or 

 Parrot, (Psittacus galeatus, but not the Psittacus galeatus of Russ,) 

 and the Ground Parrot (Pezopliorus formosus, Gld.,) for instance, are 

 cases in point: the dealers know them not, and even, some of them, 

 try to persuade an enqmrer that they have no existence : but Tasmania 



