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characters from the allied groups of the same genus, Platycercus, of the Australian continent. The 
lively and active gait of this bird, as distinguished from the slow and climbing motions of the Parrots, 
was particularly noticed *. On the death of this rarity it was skilfully mounted and placed in the 
bird-gallery at the British Museum, where it has remained to the present day. Its bill is conspi- 
cuously larger than in the specimens recently brought by Captain Fairchild from Antipodes Island, 
but this was doubtless due to its having been kept for a long time in confinement. In other respects 
it corresponds exactly with the specimen forwarded to me by Sir James Hector, and which I have 
had the pleasure of presenting to the Cambridge Museum. The discovery of the home of Platycercus 
unicolor , after so long a lapse of time, is just one of those events in Ornithology that serve to stimu- 
late and reward the labours of our naturalists abroad. 
The subjoined figures of the heads (natural size) of Platycercus novae zealandice (fig. 1) and 
P. unicolor (fig. 2) will show, at a glance, how much these species differ from each other in size ; 
whilst the uniform green plumage of the latter readily distinguishes it from ail other members of 
the group. Fig. 2 is taken from the British Museum specimen, in which the bill is rather larger 
than in mine, owing perhaps to the long captivity of the bird, and the consequent tendency to 
abnormal growth. 
Fig. 1. Eig. 2. 
I stated at page 149, on the authority of Sir George Grey, that the northern Maoris have a 
tradition of some very remarkable kind of Parrot as inhabiting Cuvier Island, a high wooded islet 
near the entrance to the Hauraki Gulf. It may be of interest to mention that this locality has very 
recently been thoroughly explored by Mr. Adams, a collector employed by the Auckland Museum, 
and that, although he met with the common New-Zealand Parrakeet and several other familiar 
species, he found no strange birds there. 
Fam. NESTORIDiE . — It will be seen that I have given a full account of the Kea, or Sheep- 
killing Parrot, with a history of its development into a carnivorous bird. The extraordinary habit 
which it has so speedily acquired of attacking live sheep, for the purpose of feasting on the kidney-fat, 
has been the subject of much discussion among naturalists f. By its addiction to this vicious habit 
* Proc. Zool. Soc. 1830-32, pp. 23, 24. 
f At the Colonial and Indian Exhibition, 1886, a painting in oils of considerable merit was exhibited by Mr. George Sheriff, 
of Wanganui, showing a pair of Keas at work on a sheep; but the artist has made the mistake of substituting a dead animal for a 
live one, thus falsifying the record in its most essential feature. As mentioned at p. 170, a pen-and-ink sketch by Mr. Potts in 
‘ Out in the Open ’ represents the incident correctly in this respect, but the figure of the animal operated upon is devoid of all 
expression, just as if the sheep submitted to the vivisection as a matter of course or treated the whole thing as a joke. A large 
drawing in my possession, from the talented pencil of Mr. J. Wolf, gives an admirable idea of the subject. The scene selected is 
the gorge of the Eangitata, under moonlight, showing the far-off snow-capped peaks of the Southern Alps, flanked by enormous 
