BLUE- VENTED PARROT. 
lateral ones which are dark brown on the inner-webs ; fore part of head slightly 
tinged with blue ; lores, space round the eye and fore-part of cheeks dull white 
becoming darker and tinged with vinous on the hinder face and sides of neck where 
the feathers have dark edges; throat and fore-neck vinous barred with brown; 
sides of breast more uniform brown ; middle of breast and abdomen rose-pink 
rather brighter on the latter ; flanks, thighs, and under tail-coverts pale blue ; 
greater under wing-coverts and quills below dark brown ; lower aspect of tail 
dark brown with white tips to the outer feathers. Bill dark horn, eyes brown, 
feet brown. Total length 240 mm. ; culmen 11, wing 127, tail 124, tarsus 12. 
Figured. Collected at Broken Hill, New South Wales, on the 21st September, 1909. 
Adult female. Similar in plumage to that of the adult male, but slightly smaller in 
measurement. Figured. Collected in New South Wales. 
Nest. A hole in a tree. 
Eggs. Clutch four to five. White. 23 mm. by 18 (Campbell). 
Breeding-season. August to October (November?). 
Birds from Flat Rock hole, East of Musgrave Ranges, Central Australia, are 
lighter above and have the vent-feathers lighter blue. 
The first mention of this delightful little Parrakeet is in Mitchell’s Three 
Exped. East Australia, Vol. I., p. xviii, 1838, where, however, the bare name 
Nanodes bourkii appears. 
Three years later Gould figured it in his work but could give no information 
as to its habits, merely stating that it had been discovered by Major Mitchell on 
the banks of the River Bogan, in the interior of New South Wales. In 1865 he 
suggested : “In the interior ... it will doubtless prove to be widely spread, 
for Captain Sturt found it in abundance at the Depot in Central Australia.” 
Captain Sturt wrote : “ Euphema bourkii was a visitant at the Depot, and 
remained throughout the winter, keeping in the daytime in the barren bushes 
behind the camp, and coming only to water. The approach of this little bird 
was intimated by a sharp cutting noise in passing rapidly through the air, when 
it was so dark that no object could be seen distinctly, and they frequently struck 
against the tent cords in consequence.” 
Since then it has not commonly been met with as it is confined to the 
central districts and is rare even there. 
Captain S. A. White has written me: “ The note is a beautiful soft warble 
and the flight remarkably swift. The crops of the specimens taken were much 
distended with very small grass seeds. It is remarkable the lateness these birds 
come in to water up to 9 p.m. I only met with these birds in two localities in 
the far North of South Australia.” 
From the Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1., Vol. III., I quote : “ Mr. Robert 
Grant stated : ‘ I have only once met with Bourke’s Grass Parrakeet, and this 
was in November, 1892, about a mile below the wool wash at Bourke, on the 
Darling River. A pair were feeding on the ground, and I fired and shot both 
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