THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
varies from eight to eighty feet in actual measurements. The eggs are usually 
six in number, though one sometimes finds four or five. The female alone 
performs the task of incubation, and sits very closely when she has small young, 
or the eggs are on the point of hatching, and I have known several instances 
when she could have been captured on the nest. They feed on the ground on 
the seeds of the grasses and various other plants, and when disturbed fly up 
into the Gums, where the protective colouring of the female renders it very 
difficult to detect her. The male, however, with his brilliant green and scarlet 
livery, is a much more conspicuous object. Later he added : “ Psephotus 
multicolor were breeding much more freely in the spring of 1909, especially 
in the box trees growing in the scrub country, herbage being more plentiful 
than it has been for the previous four years, and seeding freely in great variety. 
Clutches of young varied from four to six, but in one instance a hollow contained 
seven. Incubation with this Parrakeet commences with the first egg laid. 
I opened the crop of one young one that Mr. M‘Lennan accidentally dropped 
when examining a nestful, and found it very full of fine seeds, as fine as gun- 
powder, and could only wonder at the industry of the parent birds who could 
find and collect such seeds and fill the crops of seven young birds by 8 o’clock 
in the morning.” Mr. G. A. Heartland added : “ Psephotus multicolor has a 
very wide range, being found wherever Mallee, Mulga or Saltbush is met with. 
These birds seem to remain in pairs throughout the year, as the only occasions 
on which I saw five or six together was when the old pair were accompanied 
by their brood. They are most affectionate in disposition, and on several 
occasions on which I have shot one of a pair the other has flown down to its 
dead mate, and, although disturbed, returned two or three times to try and 
entice it away.” Mr. E. H. Lane, of Orange, wrote : “I found Psephotus 
multicolor nesting at Wambangalang Station, nineteen miles from Dubbo, New 
South Wales, in October 1882, in the hollow of a White Box tree. It contained 
merely two fresh eggs, no doubt only part of a set, but which I had to take as 
I had cut into the hollow. This is the only time I remember seeing this species 
there, and probably dry weather drove it in.” 
Mr. Tom Carter’s notes read : “ This species was not uncommon on the 
lower Gascoyne River in 1887, and many used to come to water at the sheep 
troughs (it was a dry season). Since that year, none were observed by me, 
but I was told that they occur further inland, and on the Lyndon River.” 
Mr. W. B. Alexander has written me : “I have only met with these charming 
birds on one occasion. When camped at Newman’s Rocks half way between 
Fraser’s Range and Balladonia, a party of them came round us in the early 
morning. They seemed to be feeding on seeds, running actively about on the 
ground and when alarmed flying up into the trees.” 
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