CRIMSON PARROT. 
back ; tail cuneiform , seven inches long ; general colour greenish-brown : 
the two middle feathers green down the shafts ; all of them margined on the 
outer webs with blue, and, except the middle ones, have the tips whitish ; 
legs dusky. 
I am indebted to Sir Joseph Banks for this description, having a perfect 
specimen in his possession. Native place uncertain.” 
In the Supplement , Vol. I., p. 61, 1787, Latham described a bird received 
from Mr. Pennant as from New South Wales under the name Pennantian 
Parrot. He apparently did not recognise that this was the same bird as he 
had named the “Beautiful Lory,” though probably it was one of the 
same lot. 
In the Syst. Nat., 1788, Gmelin gave the Latin name of Psittacus elegans 
to the Beautiful Lory, while in the Index. Ornith., 1790, Latham latinised Ms 
Pennantian Parrot into Psittacus pennantii. This latter name became accept- 
able through the definite locality, though it must be admitted the description 
reproduced above is a good and easily recognizable one of the present species. 
Phillips in his Voyage to Botany Bay, 1789, gave a pi. opp. p. 154 of the 
Pennantian Parrot, writing : “This beautiful bird is not unfrequent about Port 
Jackson, and seems to correspond greatly with the Pennantian Parrot, described 
by Mr. Latham , in the supplement to his General Synopsis of Birds, p. 61, differ- 
ing in so few particulars as to make us suppose it to differ only in sex from 
that species.” 
Shaw and Nodder, in the Naturalists’ Miscellany, gave a figure of the 
species (pi. 53), with the name Psittacus gloriosus, while Shaw also named 
another specimen in the Leverian Museum (pi. 29, p. 27, 1792), Psittacus 
splendidus. 
When Kerr drew up the Animal Kingdom in 1792, he added varietal 
names, giving, on p. 567, Ps. elegans viridis to a variety of the Beautiful Lory 
mentioned by Latham, and, p. 568, Ps. pennantii phillippi to the bird figured 
by Phillips as noted above. 
It now became obvious that the variation observed was due to plumage 
changes and the species became commonly recognised under Latham’s name 
of pennantii. This usage lasted practically undisputed for one hundred years, 
when Salvadori resuscitated the correct name of elegans , which since 1891 has 
been universally utilised. Such is the value of an authoritative declaration. 
It is noteworthy that Kuhl in 1820 used the earliest name, elegans, and Vigors 
and Horsfield cited this in the synonymy of pennantii. The reason for its re- 
jection by these writers is not clear, and I do not understand why Gould did 
not use elegans, as he also quotes it, and he stated he was a firm believer in 
priority. It may be that, through his general custom of not giving dates in 
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