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A pretty male bird obtained by Reischek near Dusky Sound, at an elevation of 2000 feet, has the 
entire plumage tinged with saffron-brown, which is darkest on the breast, shoulders, and upper wing-coverts ; 
the yellow on the vertex is mixed with orpiment-orange ; the blue on the bastard quills and primaries is 
unusually brilliant ; the scapulars have a wash of yellow ; and the uropygial spots are very indistinct. 
I have seen several examples exhibiting marks of red on the vertex and crown ; and in the Canterbury 
Museum there is a specimen which has the frontal band dull red instead of crimson, the crown, upper 
surface of wings, and the abdomen more or less marked with yellowish brown, the primaries tipped and the 
secondaries largely margined with paler brown. 
Mr. Henry Travers obtained one on Mangare Island (at the Chathams) “ with a faint tinge of yellow 
on the head.” 
A specimen obtained by Dr. Lemon at Takaka, in the South Island, and presented to the Colonial 
Museum, is one of the loveliest objects in the mounted collection. The whole of the plumage is of a vivid 
canary-yellow, which is brightest on the vertex, and is bordered by a narrow band of crimson across the 
forehead. The uropygial spots are large and of flaming crimson. The only indications of the normal colour 
are on the quills and tail-feathers. The quills are pale canary-yellow, inclining to white; the middle pri- 
maries in one wing are clouded with dark grey, and in the other wing there is a splash of green across the 
secondaries ; in both wings the bastard quills arc edged with blue ; the two middle tail-feathers are stained 
with green, and the two succeeding on either side arc green in their central portion ; one of the outer laterals 
also is marked with green. Bill pure white ; legs and feet flesh-white. 
This bird, as Dr. Lemon informs me, was shot in May 1882, in Eve’s Valley, Waimea, by Mr. Fabian, 
telegraph lineman, who had the good sense to preserve it. By the courtesy of Sir James Hector, it was 
brought to England, and exhibited in the New -Zeal and Court at the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886. 
Obs. This species is very readily distinguished from all the other members of the group of Platycerci by its 
beautiful golden vertex. Individuals vary both in size and in the brilliancy of their plumage. 
Some specimens exhibit the yellow vertex stained more or less with crimson. The type of Platycercus 
malherbi, in the British Museum, received from the Auckland Islands, and characterized by Souance as 
“ encore plus petit que 1 ’auriceps,” is nothing but a very small example of this species. There is an equally 
small one in the same collection from the Bay of Islands, New Zealand. 
Professor Hutton states that two specimens brought by Mr. Henry Travers from the Chatham Islands 
are slightly larger than the New-Zealand bird. 
The Yellow-fronted Parrakeet, although generally dispersed over the country in all suitable localities, 
is more plentiful than the red-fronted species in the northern parts of the North Island, and less so 
as we approach Cook s Strait. In the South Island, however, the two species appear to be more 
equally distributed. 
In habits this bird closely resembles the preceding one ; but it is less gregarious, being seen 
generally in pairs. It loves to frequent the tutu bushes ( Coriaria ruscifolia ), to regale itself on the 
juicy berries of this bushy shrub; and on these occasions it is easily snared by the natives, who use 
for that purpose a flax noose at the end of a slender rod. When feeding on the tutu-berry, the 
whole of its interior becomes stained of a dark purple. When the wild dock has run to seed, this 
pretty little Parrakeet repairs to the open fields and feasts on the ripe seeds of that noxious weed ; 
at other seasons the berries of Coprosma lucida, Fuchsia excorticata, and other forest-shrubs afford it 
plentiful and agreeable nutriment. 
Far up the course of the Northern Wairoa, just below Mangakahia, the banks of the river for 
some miles are cleared of the original forest, the land having been in years gone by occupied by 
Maori plantations. A new growth has covered the long-abandoned “ wairengas,” and, just along the 
margin of the stream, the soil, enriched by deposits of fine silt through the occasional overflowing of 
the muddy waters, supports a belt of tupakihi, intermixed with other shrubs and completely over- 
grown with climbing convolvulus. In no part of New Zealand have I found the Yellow-fronted 
