30 
BEAUTIFUL PABBAKFFT. 
Twelve or thirteen, inches in length, of which the tail occupies five 
or six, these slim and elegantly-shaped birds are natives of New South 
Wales, where they feed on the honey and pollen of flowers, flies and 
small insects, and in winter on such insects and seeds as they can find. 
The sexes differ immensely in colour, the male is gorgeously apparelled, 
and the female as soberly clad as her mate is gay. The top of the head 
of the male is dark grey, the back and wings are of the same colour 
but a shade lighter, the forehead is bright red, the face, neck, and 
breast a wonderful combination of blue and green, so blended that in 
one light the one colour preponderates, and the other in another; the 
rump is red, flecked with yellowish white spots, the tail is green, 
shading off to blue at the extremities of the feathers, a band of scarlet 
marks the shoulders, the beak is grey, and the feet and legs pale 
slate colour. 
The female is yellow in those parts where her mate is green and blue, 
and pale green where he is yellow, her head and wings are of a paler 
grey than the male's, and her shoulder bands are yellow with a tinge 
of red, a few specks of the same colour appearing on her breast. 
The young males can be distinguished from their mother, by their red 
frontlet, red shoulder stripes, green cheeks, and reddish abdomen, while 
their wings and back are nearly as dark as those of their father. 
It is a pity these beautiful creatures are so difficult to keep, for, 
apart from their beauty, there are few foreign birds more amiable and 
inoffensive in their habits, or more susceptible of being completely tamed; 
and if only a suitable diet could at all times be devised for them they 
would be more frequently met with in the aviaries of amateurs than is 
at present the case. 
Although generally classed by writers with the Grass Parrakeets, 
Euphemce, or with the Psephoti, the Beautiful is more nearly related to 
the Trichoglossi, and if this fact be borne in mind, and its treatment 
assimilated as much as possible to that recommended for the former 
birds, as well as for the Many-coloured Parrakeet, a considerable 
advance toward a solution of the difficult problem of how to preserve 
them in captivity will have been made. 
Although an enterprising breeder recently advertised aviary-bred 
specimens of the Beautiful or Paradise Parrakeet for sale, we venture 
to doubt the fact of their having been bred in this country, or even 
on the continent of Europe: it is just possible they may have been 
reared at the Cape of Good Hope, where Blue Mountain and other 
Lories have, we know, been produced in confinement; but flowers, the 
honey and pollen of which form the principal food of these ‘ Lorikeets', 
are as abundant there as leaves in summer are with us, and if supplied 
