174 
BLUE-BELLIED LORIKEET. 
mesticated state; a fact curiously illustrative of their 
peculiar habits, and the situation they hold in the 
family of the Psittacidae. It appears that they sel- 
dom live long in confinement, and that when caged 
they are very subject to fits. This in all probabili- 
ty arises from a deficiency of their natural food ; and 
the instinctive feeling or appetite for its favourite 
diet is strongly exemplified in the fact, that one kept 
by Mr Caley being shewn a figure of a coloured 
plant, used to put its tongue to the flowers, as if 
with the intent of sucking them, and this it even did 
when shewn a figured piece of cotton furniture. By 
the natives it is called War-rin ; the settlers call it 
by the name of the Blue Mountain Parrot, though 
the term seems to be misapplied, as it is a frequenter 
of the plains, and not of the hilly districts. Its flesh 
is excellent, and highly esteemed. This bird was 
confounded with two other species, viz. the Psitt. 
hcematodus of Linnaeus, and the Psitt. amboinensis 
varia of Brisson. The subject, however, has been 
thoroughly investigated by Mr Swainson, and the 
result of that investigation is given in the “ Illustra- 
tions of Ornithology,*'” where it is clearly shewn to 
be a species distinct from the other two, and as such 
it received the name we now attach to it, which we 
think it proper to notice, as it has since been desig- 
nated by Wagler, in his Monograph of the Parrots, 
as the Trichoglossus multicolor. 
* Illustrations of Ornithology by Sir William Jardine, 
Bart, and P. J. Selby, v. 2. part 8. pi. 112. 
