ECLECTUS POLYCHLORUS. 
Green Lory. 
Psittaciis poly chlor us, Scopoli, Del. Faun, et Flor. Insubr. ii. p. 87 (1786). 
Psittacus sinensis, Gmelin, S. N. i. p. 337 (1788). 
Psittacus magnus, Gmelin, S. N. i. p. 344 (1788). 
Psittacus viridis, Latham, Index Orn. i. p. 125 (1790). 
Psittacus lateralis, Shaw, Gen. Zool. vhi. p. 490 (1811). 
Mascarinus prasinus. Lesson, Traite, p. 188 (1831). 
Eckctus linncei, Wagler, Monogr. Psittac. p. 671, pi. xxii. (1832). 
Eclectus polychlorus,G\'3.Y, Genera of Birds, ii. p. 418 (1845).— Id. List Psittacida3 Brit. Mus. p. 66 (1859). 
Eclectus puniceus, Bonap. P. Z. S. 1849, p. 142. — Rosenb. J. f. O. 1864, p. 114. 
Eclectus grandis, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 4 (1850).— Id. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 155. 
Eclectus westermanni. Bp. Consp. i. p. 4 (1850). 
Eos puniceus, Lichtenstein, Nomencl. Av. p. 71 (1854). 
Polychlorus magnus, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1857, p. 226. 
Mascarinus polychlorus, Finsch, Nederl. Tijdsch. Berigten, p. xvi. (1863). 
Psittacodis magna, Rosenb. Tijdschr. Nederl. Indie, 1863, p. 226.— Id. .1. f. O. 1864, p. 114. 
Psittacus linncei, Finsch, Neu-Guinea, p. 157 (1865), 
Were any thing required to assure the student of ornithology that there is still ])lenty of work to do in the 
science, the history of the present bird would afford a text for a discourse on that subject. A cage-bird 
in every menagerie of any repute, described and figured over and over again during the last hundred years, 
and for the last twenty years by no means rare in collections, the present species might have been su])posed 
to have been Avell understood. No one, therefore, was prepared for the astounding assertion made by Dr. 
Meyer in 1874, that the Lories of the Moluccas, considered by everybody to represent many distinct 
species, were nothing but the males and females of perhaps three. I candidly confess that I was for 
a long time extremely sceptical on the subject ; but after examining specimens sent me by Dr. Meyer, 
I must admit that he is perfectly right, and that this curious fact must be accepted by ornithologists. The 
story comes better from Dr. Meyer himself than from me ; and I therefore give the note which he has 
just forwarded : — 
“ ‘ When crossing the sea from the Island of Mafoor to the Island of Mysore, in Geelvink Bay, in the 
vear 1873, having spread out before me, on hoard of my small vessel, the ornithological harvest which I had 
reaped on Mafoor, it struck me that all the specimens of Eclectus polychlorus. Scop., were labelled as 
males, and all those of E. linncei, "Wagler, as females *, and I had six green males (^polychlorus^ and nine red 
females (linncei). The suspicion then arose in my mind that it could not have been by chance that I had 
only shot the males of E. polychlorus and the females of E. linncei' 
“ With these words of introduction I commenced the first paper which I published on the sexual 
differences in the Eclectus, in the year 1874 (Verb. d. zool.-bot. Ges. M^ien, 1874, p. 179, and Zool. 
Garten, May 1874, p. 161). Since then I have been obliged to write three more notes on the same 
subject, because at first the opinion that the green parrots are indeed the males of the red ones was almost 
universally contested. Nevertheless I already said in my first paper (1. c.), ‘ The fact, discovered by 
myself, is thoroughly ascertained, and cannot he doubted.’ 
“In my second note (Mitth. d. k. zool. Mus. Dresden, i. p. 11, 1875) I chiefly disputed Prof. Schlegel’s 
view, who had promulgated the following' opinion, and supposed it to be well founded : — ‘Adopting this 
hypothesis, we should be obliged in the meantime to accuse of negligence four of our most experienced 
travellers ; and to establish among the parrots the quite exceptional case of a singular sexual difference 
would be the more remarkable, as it would besides offer in the females variations constant according to 
the localities’ (Mus. d’Hist. Nat. des Pays-Bas, Psitt. 1874, p. 17). By the four most experienced travellers 
of the Leiden Museum, Prof. Schlegel meant, as far as I am aware, Salomon Muller, Dr. Bernstein, Hoedt, 
and Von Rosenberg. But I proved that even the facts published in the Catalogues of the Leiden Museum 
show that I am right, as, for instance, among seven specimens of E. intermedins (green) six are marked as 
males and only one as a female ; and, on the other hand, among fourteen specimens of E. grandis (red) 
