PSEPHOTUS CHRYSOPTER YGIU S, Gould. 
Golden-backed Parrakeet. 
Psephotus chrysopterygius, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., partxxv. p. 220. 
One of the greatest pleasures enjoyed by the late celebrated botanist Robert Brown, during the last thirty 
years of his life, was to now and then exhibit the drawing of a parrot made by one of the brothers Bauer, 
from a specimen procured somewhere on the north coast of Australia, but of which no specimen was preserved 
at the time, and none had since been brought to England. It afforded him at times much amusement to 
exultingly show me this drawing as a bird I could not find, and which I had not included in my great work on 
the birds of that country. Now the only way in which I could meet this kind of half taunt from my friend, 
was to remark that I should get it some day or other ; and I certainly did exult when I received an example 
from the hands of Mr. Elsey, a year or two prior to Mr. Brown’s death. On comparing the bird with the 
drawing made at least forty years before, they proved to be so much alike that no doubt remained on my mind 
as to its having been made from an example of this species. This, then, is one of the novelties for which we 
are indebted to the explorations of A. C. Gregory, Esq. ; and I trust it may not be the last I shall have to 
characterize through the researches of this intrepid traveller. Mr. Elsey, who, as is well known, accompanied 
the expedition, obtained three examples — a male, a female, and a young bird — all of which are now in our 
national collection. The bird is in every way a true Psephotus, and moreover is a very lovely species. It 
is allied both to the P. pitlcherrimus and P. multicolor, but differs from them, among other characters, in 
the rich-yellow mark on the shoulder. 
In the notes accompanying the specimens, Mr. Elsey states that they were procured on the 14th of Sep- 
tember, 1856, in lat 18° S. and long. 141° 33' E., and that their crops contained some monocotyledonous seeds. 
The male has a band across the forehead, extending above the eye to its posterior angle, of very pale yellow ; 
on the centre of the crown a patch of black ; sides of the head, cheeks, neck, throat, upper portion of the 
abdomen, lower part of the back, rump, and upper tail-coverts verditer blue, somewhat green on the cheeks 
and upper-tail coverts ; immediately below the eye a tinge of yellow ; back of the neck, back, and scapularies 
light greyish brown, slightly tinged with green; shoulder and lesser wing-coverts fine yellow ; primaries and 
secondaries black, margined externally with blue ; feathers of the lower part of the abdomen, vent, and under 
tail-coverts light scarlet, margined with greyish green ; two centre tail-feathers dark green at the base, pass- 
ing into deep blue towards the extremity, and tipped with dull black ; the remaining tail-feathers light green 
crossed by an irregular oblique band of dull bluish black, beyond which they become of a paler glaucous 
green, until they end in white ; hut each has a dark stain of bluish green on the outer margin near the tip ; 
irides brown ; bill and nostrils bluish horn-colour ; feet mealy grey. 
The female is similar to the male in colour, but all the hues much paler, and the markings much less 
strongly defined. 
In the young state the whole of the head, all the upper surface, wing-coverts, throat, and breast are of a 
pale glaucous green ; the rump and upper tail-coverts and the tail similar to the same parts in the male, but 
not so bright ; and the lower part of the abdomen is greyish white, with faint stains of scarlet. 
The figures represent the male and the female of the size of life, and a reduced figure of the young in the 
distance. 
