Captain Sturt procured a single male example of this beautiful bird during his journey into the interior of South Australia.
| 404. Euphema Bourkii | [Vol. V. ] Pl. 43. |
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.
| 405. Melopsittacus undulatus | [Vol. V. ] Pl. 44. |
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.