MANY-COLOURED PARROT. 
It is also found all through the interior as far as the MacDonnell Ranges and 
west to the Musgrave and Everard Ranges : they seem to prefer low scrubby 
ground and procure their food upon the ground : this consists of grass seeds, 
berries and the seeds of acacias. Although these birds are found quite close 
to the coast in the mallee and other low scrub growing on poor ground, they do 
not frequent the heavily timbered country in the Mount Lofty Ranges and on 
the alluvial flats.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby writes : “I have found this bird very common at 
Nackara, South Australia, about 160 miles north of Adelaide, in country 
timbered with tall Mallee and dry saltbush country. I have never met with it 
near Adelaide, but it is the common parrot the other side of the gulf on Yorkers 
Peninsula, also in the Mallee just back from the River Murray. I have also 
specimens from Leigh’s Creek. It appears that this species replaces the former 
(P. hcematonotus) wherever the rainfall is so reduced that the larger Eucalyptus 
timber is more or less replaced by Mallee and the herbage by saltbush, which 
probably means about a twelve-inch rainfall or less. I also found this bird 
common at Callion in West Australia. This country is on the dry side as salt 
bush grows in the neighbourhood.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor’s notes read : “ This prettily coloured parrot is very 
plentiful in some parts of South Australia. I noted it was abundant on Yorke 
Peninsula while I was there in April, 1911, and I got specimens for my collection 
near Stansbury. The birds were in the more open large tree country, where 
she-oaks and eucalypts abound with abundance of grass beneath : they were 
feasting on the grass seeds in all directions and looked extremely pretty as they 
were flushed, the males showing their bright green bodies and varied bands on 
the rump to perfection, the sun shining on them and making the colours more 
brilliant. I noted that the bright reddish colour on the flanks and abdomen 
varied much in different specimens : in one it was a bright scarlet, while others 
were deep orange down to a pale orange or reddish colour. I believe thiis is 
according to age, the colour intensifying as years go by, and when very old 
the bright scarlet appearing. Their note is a small chattering call or whistle 
and often repeated. They make their nests in hollow trees, using the decayed 
wood inside as material upon which to deposit their four or five white eggs. 
They will often select a hollow fencing post and make their nest and rear their 
young in this situation. I have not seen them on Eyre’s Peninsula, but have 
noted them right up the eastern side of Spencer’s Gulf from the south end of 
Yorke Peninsula right up to Port Germein, where I saw some in the mallee 
country in August 1911, while tramping along between the Flinders Range 
and Spencer’s Gulf in the direction of Port Augusta. They were feeding 
on the seeds of the saltbush ( Atriplex ), and the crop of a male bird disclosed 
403 
