This bird has received a variety of names owing to the adult bird being very different to the younger and quite young birds. Adult, forehead black; stripe from lores passing through eye almost to hind-neck scarlet; rump scarlet; back and breast dull green; cheeks, head, neck, belly, under-tail coverts and wing coverts, bright green. Flight-feathers blue on outer, brown on inner, webs; bend of wing blue; tail feathers blue, edged with green.
Young differs in having a dull bluish-black forehead, brownish head, back mixed brown and green, rump and eye stripe chestnut red, and the underside greyish green.
This species was confined to the Society Islands, where it was obtained during Cook's Voyage by Ellis and by Forster, and lastly by Lieutenant de Marolles in 1844. We only know for certain at the present day of the existence of two specimens, one in the British Museum, ex Massena collection, whose origin is doubtful, and one in Paris, collected by Lieutenant de Marolles. What became of the other two specimens of the latter's collecting, and of Forster's and Ellis' specimens, I cannot say.
Habitat: Society Islands.
Evidently extinct.
CYANORHAMPHUS ULIETANUS (GM.)
Society Parrot Latham, Syn. I p. 250 (1781).
Psittacus ulietanus Gmelin, S.N. I p. 328, n. 85 (1788).
Platycercus ulietanus Vig., Zool. I p. 533, Suppl. pl. 3 (1825).
Cyanorhamphus ulietanus Bonaparte, Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 153, n. 188.
Platycercus tannaensis Finsch, Papag. II, p. 272 (1868).
Psittacus fuscatus Pelz., Ibis 1873, p. 30.
Adult: "Olive brown, the head brown-black; rump and basal upper tail-coverts brown-red, the longest upper tail-coverts olive brown like the back; underparts olive-yellow; quills, primary-coverts, under wing coverts and tail-feathers grey; bill black, base of upper mandible grey; feet brown." (Salvadori, Cat. B. XX p. 579). Wing 5.3 inches, bill 0.8 inches, tarsus 0.8 inches, tail 5 inches.
Habitat: Ulietea, Society Islands (fide Latham).