THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
quite a quantity of those little seeds. The disposition of this parrot is by no 
means pugilistic, as it will live perfectly well with other birds, and is not timid 
or wary while in its native state. I also noted this bird in the Narracoorte 
district. South Australia, in the timbered parts where it also breeds in August 
to November.” 
Mr. F. E. Howe states : “ Very plentiful at Pine Plains, and a few were 
observed at Kow Plains feeding beneath the pine trees. The flight is undulating 
and they have the same habit of bustling into a tree as Platycercus eximius. 
We were much too early (September) for eggs.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor later wrote : “ These were fairly numerous near Mannum, 
River Murray, South Australia, in the open country, especially where the 
she-oak grows and a plentiful supply of grass seed exists upon which they usually 
feed : their call, habits, etc., were the same as in the Flinders Range. Also 
fairly plentiful at Stansbury, Yorke’s Peninsula : during the harvesting time 
they collect plentifully about the barns and com heaps to secure the wheat that 
is generally scattered round : they like wheat, especially when it is softened with 
the rain, and they will also molest it when it has ripened in the ears.” 
Dr. Wo Macgillivray, writing of the birds of the Barrier Range, West New 
South Wales (Emu, Vol. X., 1910), stated, p. 25: “We found nests of two 
species of Cockatoo and of the Many-coloured Parrakeet ( Psephotus multicolor ), 
containing fully fledged young. These Parrakeets frequent the creeksides, and 
also the box flats in the scrub country throughout the district ; they are usually 
seen in pairs, or families after the breeding season ; they never flock like the 
Red-rumped Grass-Parrakeet (P. hcematonotus), which is not found nearer than 
Menindie, on the Darling, apparently its northern limit in this direction.” 
Chandler (Emu, Vol. XIII., p. 36, 1913) wrote : “ This magnificent bird was 
fairly plentiful (on the Kow Plains, Victoria), and several nests were chopped 
out, which were ready for eggs. Two nests contained respectively four and 
five eggs to the clutch. In a hollow stump a brood of five young birds was 
found a few days before we broke camp. About a foot below the Parrot’s nest 
in the same hollow, a marsupial mouse had made her nest.” 
In the Pep. Horn. Sci. Exped. Centr. Austr. Zool., p. 64, 1896, we have 
Heartland’s note : “ These birds were found near all waterholes passed. Although 
a number were shot, not one of the males was as brilliant in the scarlet 
marking on the thighs and abdomen as those found at Murtoa and in the Mallee 
Scrub near the Murray. They were always in pairs and were never seen in 
flocks like the Red-rumped Parrakeet (P. hcematonotus) . The females were 
all of the same modest hue as those found further south.” 
Captain S. A. White’s published notes read (Emu, Vol. XIII., p. 24, 1913) : 
“ This bird was met with only in the scrub a few miles from the shores of Lake 
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