The Birds of Australia, Vol. 1 of 7

If they be not local varieties of each other, there are two birds confounded under this name, one having yellow and the other scarlet under tail-coverts; it will be necessary, however, to see other examples before we can decide whether they are or are not distinct. Captain Sturt brought specimens with yellow under tail-coverts from the Depôt in the interior of South Australia.

Genus Euphema, Wagl.

The members of this genus are exclusively Australian and appear to be confined to the extra-tropical parts of the country, no species having yet been seen from the north coast. Our knowledge of this group has been extended from three to seven species, all of which are abundantly distributed over the southern portions of the continent, and two of them over Van Diemen’s Land.

Captain Sturt procured a single male example of this beautiful bird during his journey into the interior of South Australia.

Captain Sturt found this species in abundance at the Depôt in Central Australia.

Genus Melopsittacus, Gould.

Generic characters.

Bill moderate; culmen arched; tomia descending at the base, then ascending and curving downwards to the tip; nostrils basal, lateral, open, and seated in a broad swollen cere; wings rather long, pointed, first primary very long, the second the longest; tail long and much graduated; tarsi moderate and covered with minute scales; toes slender, the outer toe much longer than the inner one.

The only known species of this form is strictly gregarious, assembles in vast flocks, and is admirably adapted for plains and downs covered with grasses, upon the seeds of which it entirely subsists.

In all probability this bird is universally dispersed over the whole of the interior of Australia, since independently of its previously known range from Swan River on the west to New South Wales on the east, Mr. Gilbert observed it in every part of the country between Moreton Bay and the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Genus Nymphicus, Wagl.

As of Melopsittacus, there is only one species known of this genus. It is strictly Australian, and will doubtless hereafter be found to be universally distributed over that vast country; it is equally adapted for the plains, and the two birds are frequently found associated.

There are two distinct varieties of this species, one having a much darker colouring than the other.

Genus Pezoporus, Ill.

Of this terrestrial form but one species is known, which is very generally distributed over the temperate portions of Australia, the islands in Bass’s Straits and Van Diemen’s Land. The eggs are laid on the bare ground.

Genus Lathamus, Less.

Of this form only a single species is known to exist in Australia, and that species had been assigned to a different genus by almost every recent writer on ornithology, Messrs. Vigors and Horsfield placing it in their genus Nanodes, Wagler in his genus Euphema, &c.; subsequently M. Lesson made it the type of his genus Lathamus, giving it at the same time the specific appellation of rubrifrons, which must of course give place to that of discolor, long before applied to it by Latham.

Having had ample opportunities of observing this bird in a state of nature, I concur in the propriety of M. Lesson’s views in separating it into a distinct genus; at the same time I must remark that in its habits, nidification, food and whole economy, it is most closely allied to the Trichoglossi or honey-eating Parrakeets, and in no degree related to the Euphemæ.

The arboreal group of Trichoglossi or honey-eating Lorikeets, if not so numerous in species as the grass-feeding Parrakeets, are individually much more abundant and are more universally dispersed, being found in every part of the country yet visited; several species inhabit New South Wales: only one has yet been found in Western Australia. Other members of the genus are found in New Guinea and the Moluccas, but Australia is the great nursery for the birds of this form.

In their structure, habits and mode of nidification, and in their economy, no two groups of the same family can be more widely different than the Trichoglossi and the Platycerci; the pencilled tongue, diminutive stomach, thick skin, tough flesh, and fœtid odour of the former presenting a decided contrast to the simple tongue, capacious crop and stomach, thin skin, delicate flesh and freedom from odour of the latter; besides which the Trichoglossi possess a strong os furcatorium, which organ is wanting in the Platycerci; hence while the Trichoglossi are powerful, swift and arrow-like in their flight, the Platycerci are feeble, pass through the air in a succession of undulations near the ground, and never fly to any great distance. The mode in which the two groups approach and alight upon and quit the trees is also remarkably different; the Trichoglossi dashing among and alighting upon the branches simultaneously, and with the utmost rapidity, and quitting them in like manner, leaving the deafening sound of their thousand voices echoing through the woods; while the Platycerci rise to the branches after their undulating flight and leave them again in the like quiet manner, no sound being heard but their inward piping note.

The eggs of the Trichoglossi are from two to four in number.

“Procured at Port Molle on the north-east coast, previously only found at Port Essington.”—J. M’Gillivray.