THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
colour extends also on to the cheeks in one specimen. Hob. Bellenden-Ker 
Range, Queensland. 
Wing measurements, 6.2-6.3 : average P. pennantii 6.8 inch.” 
Campbell in his Nests and Eggs Austr. Birds , Vol. II., p. 630, 1901, wrote : 
“ On the outskirts of a dense scrub, feeding upon acacia seeds, near to 
Cardwell camp, Northern Queensland (1885) we shot several deep crimson- 
red Parrakeets, with blue cheeks and shoulders like the Crimson Parrakeet 
(Pennant) of Gippsland, but evidently a variety, with feathers on the back 
and neck almost black. Besides the bird possessed quite a different voice, 
which was the means of first attracting our attention when we were at our 
tents. In passing through Sydney, I brought this new variety of Parrot 
under the notice of Dr. E. P. Ramsay. His verdict was : “ Platycercus 
pennantii. ’’’’ With this decision I felt hardly satisfied, and had a specimen 
noticed in the “ Victorian Naturalist ” (1886), subsequently presenting the 
skin to the National Museum, Melbourne, where it is now set up in the 
Queensland division. However, when Dr. Ramsay’s own collector brought 
from the Cairn’s scrubs precisely similar Parrakeets, a year or two afterwards, 
the Doctor did not apparently hesitate to describe them under the name 
Platycercus pennantii var. nigrescensP 
North commented upon this form in his paper “ On Heterochrosis in 
Australian Psittaci ” {Pec. Austr. Mus., Vol. V., June 1904, p. 266): “ Melan- 
ism, as represented by the specimens of Australian Psittaci in the collection, 
is confined to a single species, and all from the same district. It is a smaller 
and darker plumaged form of Platycercus elegans, inhabiting the Bellenden 
Ker Range, and the contiguous coastal districts of North-eastern Queensland, 
described by Dr. Ramsay as Platycercus pennantii var. nigrescens. Several 
specimens collected by Mr. Robert Grant in open forest lands, near Lake 
Eicham, are in the normal plumage ; others he procured in dense brush at 
Boar Pocket, only four miles aw'ay, exhibit traces less or more of melanism 
from a few scattered black feathers among the crimson ones on the back, to 
others having most of the feathers on the head, cheeks and breast black.” 
Two years later, in a delightful essay on the Birds of Kangaroo Island in 
the Emu, Vol. V., p. 145, 1906, A. G. Campbell recorded from that locality 
Platycercus elegans as “ The commonest birds about our camp were of this 
species. Mature birds in their brilliant livery fed unheeding among the 
grasses.” 
In the next volume was recorded (p. 78) the opinion by North that : 
“ The beautiful Crimson Parrakeet, of Kangaroo Island, known on the main- 
land as Platycercus elegans, was of a brickdust colour, and the upper surface 
had more black and less red on the feathers. A suggestion by Mr. North to 
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