THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
From North-west Australia, Mr. J. P. Rogers wrote me : “ Usually 
many are found on the Fitzroy, but none were seen this trip as few trees were 
then flowering. Sometimes this bird visits West Kimberley in thousands 
and then wholly disappears : it almost wholly depends on flowers and honey 
for food.” 
From Melville Island he recorded : “ Cooper’s Camp. Nov. 6, 1911. 
These birds are very numerous and have been ever since I came here. 
Nov. 20, 1911. This species is not so numerous: the trees they were feeding 
in have now finished blossoming. Dec. 7, 1911. Only a few are now to be 
seen and those only in the flowering gums three miles north of here. None 
were seen at the north side of the island. Feb. 3, 1912. Several flocks have 
been seen : they are feeding in the paperbark trees which are now in bloom, 
but they are not so numerous as early in November 1911.” 
Mr. Fred L. Berney, in the Emu, Vol. II., p. 218, 1903, has the following 
item from Richmond, North Queensland : “ I am forwarding the skin of a 
Lorikeet (female) ( Ptilosclera versicolor ) obtained on the river here, where 
during the past month it has been numerous, feeding on the honey of the 
bauhinia blossoms and the river gums. Never saw it on the ground except 
when down at water. It apparently lives almost entirely on honey. 
One we caught, and which has taken very kindly to captivity, is reported 
never to eat seed, but to subsist on sugar and water, with perhaps now 
and again a small portion of bread soaked in sugar and water. I examined 
three specimens recently that suicided in a well. They were all females, 
and, like the one I skinned, contained in their ovaries only very minute 
eggs. The bird sent fell into the sheep water-trough. I rescued it (only 
to make a specimen), when it squealed so vigorously that in an instant I 
was standing in a cloud of the Parrots, which settled on my arms, hands, 
shoulders and hat until they weighed down the broad felt brim of the latter 
almost to shut out my sight. They must have been two or three dozen on 
me. It was a wonderfully pretty sight, and I should much have liked to 
have caught the picture with a camera.” 
In the next volume, p. 188, Berney added : “ As very little appears to 
be known concerning the nidification of this pretty little Lorikeet, it may 
interest ornithologists to hear that I saw two broods, three and four 
respectively, that were taken from their nests — hollow spouts in trees, I 
understand — about the 15th September ; they had been in hand a week when 
I saw them, and the oldest lot would, I should think, just be able to fly a 
short distance had they had their liberty. They appeared to differ but little 
in their plumage from adult birds, excepting that the red crown was entirely 
wanting ; three individuals, though, showed the first indications of it by 
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