Walter Goodfellow—A Collector on Melville Island 321


was rearing by band. This is mid-winter and not the nesting season

as quoted in some Australian bird books. I will mention others nesting

too later. In the Northern Territory they call these lories “ Blue

Hornets


The pretty little Varied Lorrikeet ( P . versicolor) certainly came

second as far as numbers were concerned, and was equally common

around Darwin during the wet season, but not many in the dry period.

When the wattles bloom they appear again in incredible numbers.

They fly high and with a very rapid flight.


The commonest Parrakeet on the island was the Crimson-wing,

and beautiful as they are over here, how still more beautiful and vivid

they looked on their native soil in that blazing sunlight. Their flight

is irregular and quite different to most other Parrakeets. I often mistook

them for Hawks. They again are very common around Darwin, in every

garden and backyard, and along all the main roads through the settle¬

ment. In June and July, when everything was burnt up, they were

feeding on the dry seed stalks of horehound, which grows from any¬

thing up to 8 feet high along the chief thoroughfares, and on every

bit of vacant land. I noticed great numbers of immature birds among

them there, but all were very tame and allowed me to approach

within a few yards ; in fact they remained feeding at a less distance

than that if you walked straight on and took no notice of them. When

feeding they are very silent, and it is possible to pass them by, unless

the bright colours of the adult birds betray their presence among the

dust-covered, dried up vegetation.


When first I arrived in Melville the lovely Hooded Parrakeets

(Psephotus dissimilis) were fairly common, but I never saw one after

the end of March. It is not found on the mainland near Darwin, but

in certain districts farther inland. There it is called the Golden

Shouldered, which is incorrect, and which comes from Arnhem Land

at the south end of the gulf of Carpentaria. I am not sure that I have

ever seen a true Golden Shouldered, unless a pair Mrs. Johnstone had

at Rougham Hall many years ago belonged to this species. I often

think now they did.


A far more common bird was Brown’s Parrakeet, and I think

from what I have heard trappers say about it on the mainland, it must



