In common with all its congeners, it possesses rather long tarsi, and runs swiftly over the ground in 

 search of its natural food —grass seeds. During the breeding season it is partly insectivorous in its habits. But 

 there is no doubt, afi cultivation increases, and circumstances place them in its way, that it will adapt itself to 

 new forms of food in the shape of cereals. Already it has become the pest of farmers in sowing time and harvest, 

 and the fact that it does a certain amount of good in destroying noxious grubs does not compensate for its 

 depredations on the newly-sown grain fields to the eye of the agriculturalist; be wages such fierce war upon the 

 tiny bird that there is every probability of the race becoming prematurely extinct. 



The female is smaller than the male, and the distinctive orange spot is fainter. The young, like those 

 of the Platycerci, have delicate yellow bill and nostrils, and the band on the head is less conspicuous. Length 

 of adult male, about eight inches and a-half. 



Forehead, blue, margined with a faint band of metallic blue; crown of head and all the upper surfaces, 

 deep grass green ; shoulders, secondaries, and outer edge of primaries, deep indigo blue ; lores, cheeks, and breast, 

 yellowish given, passing into deep orange on the abdomen and thighs; two centre tail feathers, green; next, on 

 each side, blackish brown on their inner, and green on their outer webs, and largely tipped with bright yellow; 

 irides, very dark brown ; bill, dark brow n, becoming lighter on the under side ; tarsi, dull brown. 



Habitats : Richmond and Clarence River District (New South Wales), Interior, Victoria, South 

 Australia, and Tasmania. (Ramsay.) 



EUPHEMA CHRYSOSTOMA. {KuH.) 



BLUE - BANDED, or BLUE- BARBED GRASS PARRAKEET. Genus : Euphema. 



IN the genesis of species this small bird was evidently the prototype of Ephema elegans and Ephema pulchella, 

 and si amis now as a faint indication of future possibilities by comparison with their perfections, each having 

 advanced a step in the evolution of colour and harmonious agreement from the original stock. It is not a 

 little interesting to note how, after the superlative degree of beauty has been reached in Euphema elegans, the 

 law of compensation steps in to heighten progress, if possible, in one direction, and to check it into a falling off 

 in another. 



In Euphema elegans we see a perfectly developed variety of what Euphema chrysostoma might have 

 been under similar favourable circumstances. In plumage, contour, and expression, it conveys a vitalised 

 idea of full calm maturity. In Euphema pulchella Ave find a far more brilliant bird, but produced at the cost of 

 perfect concordance ; there is a nervous, irritable vivacity expressed in every attitude that warns us that this law 

 of compensation holds good throughout created life. 



This bird is migratory in its habits, and takes up its residence in the summer in Tasmania, arriving in 

 September, and leaving again in February or March. While there it affects open and thinly timbered localities, 

 such as are favourable for the growth of various grasses, upon whose seeds it mostly subsists. It has been 

 particularly noticed by Gould about Bruni Island, Sandy Bay, New Norfolk, Spring Hill in the Interior, the 

 banks of the Tamar, and on Flinders Island in Bass' Straits. He considers it one of the most interesting of the 

 Psi/tacida?, " for whether perched on the small dead branches of a low bush, or resting upon the stronger grasses, 

 there is grace and elegance in all its actions. It runs over the ground and threads its way among the grasses 

 with the greatest facility, and the little flocks are usually so intent upon gathering the seeds, as to admit of your 

 walking close up to them before they will rise ; the whole will then get up simultaneously, uttering a feeble cry, 

 and settling again at a short distance, or flying off to some thickly-foliaged tree, where they sit for a time and 

 again descend to the ground.*' 



