MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM. 
230 
AN ABNORMAL LORIKEET. 
By H. Greensill Barnard. 
(Plate XXXIII.) 
In November, 1934, a specimen of a yellow “ Rainbow ” or “ Blue Mountain” 
Lorikeet, Trichoglossus moluccanus, was presented to the Queensland Museum by 
Nurse E. Doig, Wynnum. The bird had died in captivity. According to information 
received, it had been captured some years before at Gunalda, near Gympie. The 
specimen is a female. 
The striking plumage of this abnormal bird is shown in Plate XXXIII, and a 
typical <£ Rainbow Lorikeet ” is also shown for direct comparison. A close study of 
the yellow or golden form will reveal that the uniform green on the wings, back and 
tail of the normal bird is replaced with gold with a misty film of green showing. The 
coloured Plate has been made from paintings by Miss V. Barnard. 
Xanthochroism, or an abnormal replacement of another colour by yellow, 
is ver}^ rare among our Australian Lorikeets. Among the seed-eating parrots (lories), 
variation of colour is not uncommon, especially in the case of the Pale-headed Rosella, 
Platycercus adscitus. It has been suggested that yellow' colouration may be obtained 
by feeding birds on certain foods, but this could hardly occur among the lorikeets, 
as they are almost entirely honey -feeders. 
A case of “ mixed albinism and xanthochroism” in Pyrrhulopsis splendens 
from Kandavu Island v r as recorded, with a coloured Plate, by Casey A. Wood in The 
Emu, Vol. XXIII, January, 1924, p. 161. Xanthochroism in a female specimen 
of Platycercus elegans v^as noted by H. L. White in The Emu, Vol. XVI, 1916, p. 108. 
