ORNITHOLOGY. 



These are the characteristic distinctions observable generally in 

 the species ; besides which there are other less material particulars in 

 which these birds are known to differ. 



In some birds we find a yellow transverse stripe on the hind 

 part of the neck, varying in colour from luteous to orange, and which 

 is more or less conspicuous in different individuals. Others have a 

 somewhat similar band of yellow, but which is situated at the back 

 of the head instead of the neck. The first of these is distinguished 

 by the name of the Sapphire Crowned Parrakeet, the other by that of 

 the Phillippine Parrakeet. Dr. Latham has endeavoured to establish 

 the characteristic distinctions of these two kinds in his Index Orni- 

 thologicus : he considers them as permanent varieties, but we must 

 confess we regard them rather as accidental than permanent. The 

 characteristic band of yellow by which they are to be discriminated 

 chiefly, appears to be more or less developed in different birds at 

 different periods of their growth ; and in the absence of this character 

 from the back of the head in the Phillipine Parrakeet, or the hind 

 part of the neck in the Sapphire Crowned Parrakeet, the resemblance 

 is so very near as to afford no certain means of distinguishing one 

 from the other. 



This bird has been long known in Europe. It appeared in the 

 work of Edwards, the ingenious English Ornithologist, who lived 

 about the middle of the last century. Linnaeus describes the 

 species with much critical minuteness in ihe fourth volume of his 

 Jmoenitates Academicoe, as Psittacus Galgulus, hracJiiunis 

 viridis pectore uropygioque coccineis, vertice cceruleo ; and this 

 description accords so exactly with the bird before us, that no doubt 



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