350



Sydney Porter—Notes from Australia



hands. It is very difficult to obtain, as it frequents the tops of the high

forest trees and is strictly protected. Upon the rare occasions when one

does meet with the bird in captivity it has been taken from the nest

and hand-reared.


The flight of the Gang-gang is wonderfully light and buoyant, the

birds seeming to float in the air, there is none of that hard swift flight

which most Parrots possess.


I was told that some months before I arrived there was a flock of

about fifty of these birds around the house feeding upon certain wattle

seeds ( Falcifermis) and the seeds of the great forest eucalyptus,

E. regnans. I often used to watch the birds feeding in the gum trees

in a forested gully. They usually seemed to be in pairs or small parties;

these were no doubt the pair and young ones. When feeding in the trees

the birds are remarkably hard to distinguish ; the plumage, especially

that of the female, harmonizing perfectly with the greyish green foliage

of the tall gum trees ; the cock’s body seemed invisible, but the bright

scarlet head and upstanding crest looked like some brilliant blossom

against the sombre foliage.


The Gang-gang seems never to trespass in the fruit gardens or to

partake of any cultivated fruits. It is a bird exclusively of the high

mountain forests and subsists on its products. It does not appear

to be shot or persecuted in any way and seems to have few natural

enemies except the forest fires which destroy the nestlings and also its

food. I heard of a pair for sale in Sydney but was unable to trace them.

I had always imagined Pennant’s Parrakeets to be inhabitants of

Australia’s sparsely timbered plains, like so many of that country’s

psittacian forms, I don’t know why I did; but I was surprised to find it,

at least where I stayed, inhabiting the deep vast forests on the moun¬

tains of Victoria. How splendid they looked when I first caught sight

of them flying through a cutting in the forest, their brilliant crimson and

pale violet making a vivid contrast against the sombre greenery of the

undergrowth.


As I write these notes, sitting in the heart of a deep forest beneath

a green roof of exquisite fan-vaulting made by the masses of tree ferns,

a pair of these gorgeous birds are feeding on the pungent green seeds

of a highly aromatic forest shrub called Zieria smithii. The birds are



