308 Sydney Porter—Notes on the Cyanorhamphus Parrakeets


colour, the head brownish black, the rump and basal upper tail coverts

brownish red, the under parts olive yellow. It was the most distinctive

in colouring of all the Cyanorhamphus Parrakeets. Nothing is known of

its habits and only one or two skins are in existence.


The Lord Howe Island Parrakeet (Cyanorhamphus suhflavinscens)


A Parrakeet very closely resembling the Norfolk Island Parrakeet

(Cyanorhamphus cooki) was once plentiful on Lord Howe Island, but

soon after the island was colonized by the white races the extermination

of this Parrakeet began. It was shot, no doubt, by the settlers owing

to its feedingupon the growing corn. This bird has now been extinct

for between thirty and forty years. It was slightly smaller than

C. cooki , but resembled it in colouring.


It is sad to think that of the fifteen known species of this family

no less than six are now extinct and the others, with the exception of

the Red-fronted Parrakeet which is only numerous on certain small

islands, are on the verge of extinction.


The Kermadec Island Parrakeet [Cyanorhamphus n. cyanurus)


A matter of between five and six hundred miles to the north-east

of New Zealand lie a group of small islands known as the Kermadecs,

which until recent years were inhabited by a single family who raised

sheep on one of the largest islands, namely Sunday Island. Pinding

that, with the slump in wool prices, farming on these lonely islands

was not a commercial proposition, the family left and, I believe, the

islands are now left to their original inhabitants, the birds.


Before the advent of man to this lonely spot a small Parrakeet

of the Cyanorhamphus group was exceedingly plentiful, in fact it still

is on some of the small outlying islands, where cats and rats have not

been introduced. Where these pests have found a home on the larger

islands the ranks of the Parrakeets have been sadly thinned out.


I had the good fortune whilst in New Zealand to see a true pair of

these very rare Parrakeets, which were in the possession of a gentleman

who had been on an expedition to. the islands and had managed to

secure this pair of birds. The hen was nesting, sitting I believe on

eight eggs in a hollowed-out tree trunk in her small aviary. This, I



