PSITTEUTELES PLACENS.

Beautiful Lorikeet.

Psittacus placentis, Temm. Pl. Col. iv. pl. 553 (1835).—Miull. & Schl. Naturl. Gesch. Land- en Volkenk. p. 23
(1839-44).

Conurus placens, Bourjot St.-Hilaire, Perrog. pl. 46 (1839).

Coryphilus placentis, Gray, Gen. B. ii. p. 417 (1845).—Id. List Psitt. B. M. p. 59 (1859).—Id. Cat. Mamm. &c.
N. Guin. p. 41 (1859).—Von Rosenb. Reis. Zudoostereilanden, p. 87 (1867).

Psitteuteles placens, Bp. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 157, et Tabl. Syst. in Naumannia, 1856.

Trichoglossus placens, Scl. Pr. Linn. Soc. 1858, p. 164.—Finsch, Papag. i. p. 872 (1868).

Coryphilus placens, Schl. Dirent. p. 78 (1864).—Finsch, Neu Guin. p. 158 (1865).

Nanodes placens, Schl. Mus. P.-B. Psittaci, p. 113 (1864).—Id. Rev. Psitt. p. 50 (1874).

Charmosyna placentis, Wall. P. Z.S. 1864, p. 292.

Trichoglossus placentis, Gray, Handl. B. i. p. 157 (1870).

 

Iv contrast to the very restricted range of P. arfaki and P. wilhelmine, the bird now before us has rather a
wide distribution, being found in nearly every one of the Papuan Islands, and Professor Schlegel gives the
following localities in which the species has been known to occur :—*“ Halmahera, Ternate, Ambaou (an
island to the south of Bouru), Ceram, Amboina, Poulo-Padjang (of the group of Ceram Laut), Great Key,
Aru Group, Mysol, Salwatti, and Guebeh, as well as in the western part of New Guinea.” The Leiden
Museum possesses a series of no less than sixty-four examples, obtained by the well-known travellers
Bernstein, Hoedt, and Von Rosenberg.

Our knowledge of this beautiful little bird is extremely limited; and I believe that there is nothing
known on the subject of its manners and general economy. A single note is given by Mr. Wallace in his
interesting work on the Malay Archipelago (i. p. 314), where he says :—

“In September 1858, after my return from New Guinea, I went to stay some time at the village of
Djilolo, situated in a bay on the northern peninsula. Here I obtained a house through the kindness of the
Resident of Ternate, who sent orders to prepare one for me. The first walk into the unexplored forests of
a new locality is a moment of intense interest to the naturalist, as it is almost sure to furnish him with
something curious or hitherto unknown. The first thing I saw here was a flock of small Parroquets, of
which I shot a pair, and was pleased to find a most beautiful little long-tailed bird ornamented with green,
red, and blue colours, and quite new to me. It was a variety of the Charmosyna placentis, one of the
smallest and most elegant of the brush-tongued Lories. My hunters soon shot me several other fine birds ;
and I myself found a specimen of the rare and beautiful day-flying moth Cocytra a? Urviller.”

It would be difficult to imagine a bird more variously coloured than the present ; and it is in conse-
quence by no means easy to describe. The bill is red, the feet yellow, the entire face bright scarlet, the
ears blue, surrounded by lively green. The upper surface of the body is also of the latter colour ; a bright
blue spot, however, vies with the mark of this tint on the ear-coverts, while the under surface of the body
from the chest to the under tail-coverts is light yellowish green, relieved on the flanks by a brilliant patch
of scarlet; on raising the wing a brilliant scarlet mass also occupies a part of the shoulders, while a
triangular-shaped mark of yellow crosses the primaries and some of the secondaries. Its graduated and
somewhat cuneate tail is much diversified, particularly on the under surface, the bases of the feathers being
red, the middle black, and the tips yellow.

The female differs from the male in having no red on the cheeks or blue on the ear-coverts, the latter
being striped with yellow and dark brown ; neither has she the bright scarlet on the flanks and under the
shoulders.

Total length of male 72 inches, wing 32, tail 42.

On the Plate are figured a male and female, of the natural size.