ALEXANDRA PARROT. 
on the Hugh River. While most species of Parrakeets resort to the same 
districts to breed year after year, SpatJiopterus alexandrce usually makes its 
appearance in some locality where it has never been seen before. Immediately 
the young ones are able to fly they assemble in flocks, and suddenly take their 
departure. In November, 1894, they came in great numbers to several places 
in the vicinity of Alice Springs, Central Australia, much to the surprise of the 
residents who had been in the locality for thirty years without seeing them. 
They left again as soon as the young ones were reared, and only stray birds 
have been seen there since. In August, 1896, while with the Calvert Exploring 
Expedition, these Parrakeets were seen and specimens obtained in the Great 
Sandy Desert, North-western Australia, about three hundred miles north-east 
of Lake Way ; others were also obtained as we went northwards towards 
Separation Well, but they were left with the abandoned collection at Joanna 
Spring. Subsequently, in March, 1897, I shot two out of flock, when about 
fifty miles north of Joanna Spring. In May, 1897, Mr. L. A. Wells, our leader, 
saw them within fifty miles of the Fitzroy River, West Kimberley. During 
1902, they appeared in flocks and bred near Menzies, Western Australia, and 
again disappeared a few weeks later. This species usually breeds about the 
time the Spinifex seed is ripening, and in the vicinity of water : as many as 
ten nests have been found in one tree. Whenever I saw them in either Central 
or North-western Australia it was invariably amongst the Spinifex, the seed, 
which is like very small Canary seed, they are extremely fond of.” 
Mr. E. A. Le Souef wrote in the Emu , Vol. XIV., p. 172, 1915, from West 
Australia : “ I had an interesting trip the other day. . . . Thirty miles west 
of Moora we motored through a flock of 300 Black Cockatoos ( Caly'ptorhynchus 
baudini) which flew along in front of the car for nearly a mile. . . . This 
year, which is a very dry one, has driven the Princess Alexandra Parrakeets 
( Polytelis alexandrce) down as far as Three Springs, where several young were 
observed last season.” y 
Captain S. A. White’s experience reads : “ Although I have travelled 
thousands of miles in search of these birds in. the interior, I have never had the 
good fortune to meet with them. I searched their old haunts in 1913 and 
again in 1914, yet in 1915 they came to those very localities in great numbers.” 
Mr. Tom Carter has written : “ The proprietor of the Hotel at Broome Hill, 
in 1905, had a pair of these beautiful birds in a cage, which he told me had 
been procured as young birds from the nest by some gold prospectors in the 
far interior, somewhere near the head of the Murchison River. One of the 
birds subsequently died, but the survivor was still alive and well at the end 
of 1913. It was very quiet and tame and whistled several airs that had been 
taught it.” 
275 
