THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
and their clatter and chatter is loud and jerky, at the same time spreading 
the tail and wagging it from side to side, and ruffling the feathers of the 
body and head and gesticulating very much with the latter, bobbing it up 
and down and on one side and the other. They bred in the hollow gum spouts 
and bowls, fairly high and out of reach of their enemies ; the sombre colour 
of these birds as compared with the southern (mallee type) was at once noted 
before we shot specimens for examination ; they seemed also to keep to the 
large trees and not to dwell in the lower scrub trees.” 
From the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1, Vol. III., I quote the following : 
Mr. K. H. Bennett of Yandembah Station, New South Wales, wrote : 
“ Platycercus barnardi is somewhat widely distributed throughout the timbered 
back country and the belts of timber bordering the rivers, but cannot be 
termed numerous, and is very rarely met with in the clumps of timber dotted 
over the plains.” Mr. Robert Grant added : “I found the ‘ Buln Buln ’ 
Parrakeet ( Platycercus barnardi ) numerous on the Macquarie, Bogan and 
Castlereagh Rivers, New South Wales. While collecting on Byrock Station in 
October, 1886, large numbers of these birds used to frequent a tank near the 
house.” 
From Broken Hill, Dr. W. Macgillivray wrote : “ This part of New 
South Wales must be considered one of the strongholds of Barnadius 
barnardi as no commoner bird exists on all the creeks which traverse 
it. It is quite an easy matter for anyone to follow one of these creeks down 
leisurely and find thirty or more nests in a day. It is, however, another thing 
to get at their contents.” 
Regarding Barnardius macgiUivrayi North, I received two skins from 
Dr. Macgillivray, who wrote : “ They are most numerous on the small Creeks 
that run from the Cloncurry Ranges on either side of the watershed, dividing 
the headwaters of that river from the Diamantina River. Eighty miles north 
along the Cloncurry River is their limit in that direction and the Leichhardt 
River to the North-west. How far south they go along the Diamantina and 
Georgina is uncertain and it would be interesting to follow them south to see 
whether they interosculate with B. barnardi which I have traced as far north 
from here as Cooper’s Creek. Their general economy is similar to other members 
of the genus.” 
It will be gathered from the preceding that really we know little of the 
life history of this species, and it is certain that we do not understand the 
plumage changes and variation. 
No subspecies were recognised for many years, but in 1900 North 
described as a distinct species Platycercus macgiUivrayi from the Burke District, 
North Queensland : North’s own differential characters were the lack of the 
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