26 
A. H. CHISHOLM, Seeking Rare Parrots. [ ’ulffi? 
All this brings me to further observations on rare Parrots in 
Queensland. Having, after some five years of intermittent effort, 
attained an objective with regard to Australia’s most distin¬ 
guished Psephotus , I turned attention to a very different mem¬ 
ber of the sub-tropical Psittacidae, to wit, the little-known Lorilet 
(Fig-Parrot) with the red face. 
WHAT OF THE FJG-PARROT. 
Back in the year 1860 one Eli Waller, a bird-dealer in Bris¬ 
bane, sent to John Gould specimens of a new Parrot, together 
with a request that the species should be named after Charles 
Coxen, member of the young Queensland Parliament, Gould’s 
brother-in-law, and one who had done much to promote the 
study of ornithology. Waller’s request was acceded to, and the 
dapper little bird became Cyclopsitta (now Opopsitta) coxeni, the 
Red-faced Lorilet or Fig-Parrot. In his notes upon the species 
Waller pointed out that he first heard of it from a sawyer work¬ 
ing thirty miles from Brisbane, who had shot a few in the jungle 
to make a pudding. Finding the birds strange, the sawyer took 
some to the Edward Street bird-dealer, who later saw live speci¬ 
mens of the Fig-Parrots in “the large scrubs of the mountainous 
district about forty or fifty miles north-west of Brisbane,” which 
had then been “little visited by Europeans.” There the tiny but 
beautiful Parrots (their colors being green, red, yellow and blue) 
crept about the branches of the huge fig-trees, feasting on the 
rancid fruit, upon which they seemed entirely to subsist. Their 
presence could be detected only by falling refuse; for the rest, 
they were “silent as death” while in the trees, and uttered only 
a faint “Cheep-cheep” when flying off. 
It is long since Waller’s few notes were written, but even at 
this date (a human lifetime later) they represent almost all we 
know of the pigmy Parrot of the red face. Only one or two 
living naturalists have ever seen the bird, and that many years 
ago; both Mr. R. Ulidge and Mr. J. O’Neil Brenan, of Bris¬ 
bane, told me they saw a few, at different times long past, run¬ 
ning mouse-like about the fig-trees of the Blackall Range; and 
Mr. A. J. Campbell recot*ds|| having seen a single example shot 
in the Richmond River “scrubs” of New South Wales in 1891. 
What had become of the Fig-Parrots? This question pre¬ 
sented itself in 1922, after the Paradise Parrot problem had been 
adjusted. The diminution in the numbers of Grass and Ground 
Parrots could be explained in a measure; but there seemed no 
good reason why the Fig-Parrots, birds of the tree-tops, should 
not still be fairly numerous. True, many of the big “scrubs” 
had gone, but others remained in almost a primeval state, with 
hundreds of accommodating fig-trees. Moreover, that other Fig- 
“Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds,” p. 599. 
