TRICHOGLOSSUS PORPHYROCEPHALUS, Dicer.
Porphyry-crowned Lorikeet.

Psittacus purpurea, Diet., Phil. Mag. 1832, vol. xi. Dp 387.

Psittacus purpureus, Wagl. Mon. Psitt. in Abhand., vol. x. p. 747.
Trichoglossus porphyrocephalus, Diet., Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. xvii. p. 553.
Psitiacula Florentis, Bourj. de St. Hil., Supp. Le Vaill. Hist. des Benepe Say
Kow-ar, Aborigines of Western Australia.

 

Tus handsome little Lorikeet was first brought before the notice of the scientific world by Mr. Dietrichsen
at the Meeting of the Linnean Society, held on the 20th of March 1832; some confusion, however,
exists as to the name then proposed for it. In a report of the Meeting published in the “ Philosophical
Magazine” for the same year it is called Psitéacus purpurea; but in the seventeenth volume of the “Linnean
Transactions ” it is correctly placed in the genus Tiichoglossus, with the far more appropriate specific
appellation of porphyrocephalus, which I therefore retain.

Although the Porphyry-crowned Lorikeet has been thus long described, it is still very rarely to be seen in
collections, a fact which may be accounted for by the circumstance of its being an inhabitant of those parts
of Australia with which we have hitherto had little intercourse.

It is not found in New South Wales, and I do not recollect ever having seen it in collections from any of
the eastern parts. It is abundant in South Australia, is equally numerous in the white-gum forests of Swan
River, and in all probability is dispersed over the whole of the intermediate country. It is the only species
of the genus I have seen from Western Australia, a circumstance which cannot be accounted for, since the
face of the country is covered with trees of a similar character.

Most of the specimens I collected were shot during the months of June and July in the neighbourhood
of Adelaide, and some of them in the town itself. It appears to arrive in this district at the flowering
season of the Eucalypt?, in company with Zrichoglossus Swainsonii, concinnus and pusillus, all of which may
frequently be seen on the same tree at one time: the incessant clamour kept up by multitudes of these birds
baffles description ; the notes of the larger species are, however, distinguishable by their superiority in
harshness and loudness ; they feed together in perfect amity, and it is not unusual to see two or three
species on the same branch. They are all so remarkably tame, that any number of shots may ‘be fired
amongst them without causing the slightest alarm to any but those that are actually wounded. Although
strictly gregarious, they appear to be always mated in pairs, which accompany each other in their various
movements among the branches. The whole of one species frequently leave the tree simultaneously,
rushing off with amazing quickness in search of other trees laden with newly-expanded flowers, among
which they dash and commence feeding with the utmost eagerness, clinging and creepmg among the
branches in every possible attitude. As this tribe of birds depends solely for its subsistence upon the
flowers of the gum-trees, their presence in any locality would be vainly sought for at any season when those
trees are not in blossom

The sexes are precisely alike in size and in the colour of their plumage.

Forehead, lores and ear-coverts yellow, intermingled with scarlet ; crown of the head deep purple ; back
of the head and neck yellowish green ; wing-coverts and rump grass-green 5 Slnonlkescr light blue ; under
primaries blackish brown, margined externally with deep green, the extreme
ereen above, golden beneath ; throat and under surface greenish grey,
1 irides in some dark brown, in

surface of thé wing crimson ;
edge being greenish yellow; tail
passing into golden green on the flanks and under tail-coverts ;_ bill black ;
others light reddish brown, with a narrow ring of orange round the pupil; feet bluish flesh-colour.

The figures are of the natural size.