Correspondence



87



them to be. They remind one strongly of Turquoisines, to which

they are, of course, closely allied, but the scarlet chest of the cock bird

is most conspicuous and striking, though he lacks the red shoulder

stripe of the cock Turquoisine.


The Splendid Parrakeet was always considered a rare bird, though

some sixty years ago it was not unknown to aviculturists in Europe.

The only pair the Zoological Society appears to have possessed arrived

just sixty-one years ago, and from these a young bird was hatched

the following year though whether this was reared to maturity or not

I have been unable to discover.


The species has its home in South and South-Western Australia,

but, apparently, it is very local in its distribution, for it seems to have

entirely disappeared for sixty years or so.


When in Western Australia twenty-four years ago I met most of

the ornithologists there and enquired as to the existence or present

status of Neophema splendida , but no one had heard of it for many

years past, and all seemed to think that it had disappeared for good.

That the species still existed was proved towards the end of 1928 when,

so Dr. Hamilton informs me, an aboriginal living at Koonibha, a mission

station at the north of the Gulf in South Australia, found a small Grass

Parrakeet that had flown into a wire fence and broken a wing. It died

and was sent to the Adelaide Museum where it was identified as a

specimen of Neophema splendida.


Now that this lovely species has reappeared it is greatly to be hoped

that every endeavour will be made to propagate it by breeding in

captivity, for there is little doubt that it will prove to be quite ready

to breed if given suitable conditions. D. S-S.



CORRESPONDENCE


BREEDING OF THE SAND GROUSE IN DENMARK—AN

EARLY RECORD


When having occasion to go through some of the back volumes of

The Zoologist I came across this interesting record and, as there

seems to be no notice of it in Dr. Hopkinson’s Records or in the

Avicultural Magazine, a short summary of the paper may be of



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