678 REPORT OF THE HARVARD AFRICAN EXPEDITION 
PSITTACIFORMES 
PSITTACIDAE Parrots 
Psittacus erithacus timneh Fraser. Sierra Leone Gray Parrot 
Psittacus timneh Fraser, Proc. Zool. Soc. London, 1844, p. 38: Timneh country, Sierra Leone. 
Size of a pigeon, length 12 inches; general color dark gray, edges of the feathers paler; rump 
and abdomen paler gray or whitish tinged with blue-gray; tail crimson, under tail-coverts some- 
times washed with crimson. A bare area around the eye; iris buffy white. Sierra Leone and 
Liberia. 
_ This is the characteristic parrot of the Liberian forests. It seems to be at 
all times social, going about in pairs or more commonly in flocks numbering 
up to forty or more birds. The regularity of their passage to and from their 
feeding grounds in morning and evening is a matter of common observation. 
Although we were never able to discover their roosting places, Biittikofer men- 
tions one on Alin Island, in St. Paul’s River, where often many hundreds 
assembled for the night. We frequently observed their passage over our camp 
in the morning at just about daylight, sometimes indeed before the early mists 
had risen so that they flew past enveloped in the fog, but always with a con- 
tinuous series of clear whistles interspersed with harsh, screeching notes, while 
just as regularly at sunset the flocks would return high overhead, heralding 
their approach by a similar chorus, as they came spread in a wide phalanx, 
their sharp swift wings and chunky bodies giving a highly characteristic ap- 
pearance. They feed, among other things, on the bean-like seeds of a large 
mimosa-like tree, and on occasion probably on the seeds of the oil palm, in a 
plantation of which I once saw a small flock. 
Agapornis swinderniana swinderniana (Kuhl). Black-collared Love-bird 
Psittacus swindernianus Kuhl, Conspect. Psitt., p. 62, pl. 11, 1820: Africa. 
Size of a crossbill, length 5.5 inches; head and upper back green, passing into olive yellow on the 
sides of the neck; a narrow black collar, washed with olive yellow below; rump dark blue, middle 
tail-feathers green with a red spot at the middle, the others red with a wide black band below the 
green tip; flight feathers mostly black edged with green; belly light green. Upper mandible black, 
lower bluish gray; feet gray, iris yellow. Liberia. 
The typical race of this small parrot is found, chiefly at least, in Liberia, 
but seems to be local or uncommon for we saw nothing of it, although constantly 
looking for it. Bittikofer (1885) on his first sojourn in the country saw but 
a single small flock which came daily to feed on the fruit of a tall tree on the 
heavily-wooded island of Alin in the St. Paul’s River. Here on successive 
days between May 31 and June 2, he secured eight specimens, practically 
wiping out the flock. On a later visit (1888, p. 94) he secured a few from a 
flock of twelve at Schieffelinsville, while Stampfli procured a series from the 
Junk River, where previously Schweitzer had collected a number. Nothing 
further seems to be known of it in the country. It is worth noting in this con- 
nection, however, that not far to the north in the vicinity of Freetown, Sierra 
Leone, Thompson (1925) records the related species, Agapornis pullaria, the 
