Holes in the large gum-trees afford a natural breeding-place. The eggs, which are laid in September and the three following months, are pure white, and six or eight in number, one inch and two lines long by eleven and a half lines broad. When the young are first hatched they are covered with long, white down, and present an appearance not very dissimilar to a round ball of white cotton-wool.
I found this species very abundant on the banks of the Tamar, and in one instance I saw hundreds congregated at a barn-door among the straw of some recently-thrashed corn, precisely after the manner of the Sparrow and Pigeon in England.
Forehead crimson; crown of the head and back of the neck pale yellow, each feather very slightly margined with brown; space under the eye dull crimson; cheeks blue; back and shoulders dark olive-black, each feather edged with green; middle of the wings blue; the basal half of the primaries blue on their external edges, the remainder blackish brown; rump and two middle tail-feathers green, the remainder of the tail-feathers dark blue at the base, lighter towards the tip; under surface of the body yellow; bill flesh-colour; feet greyish brown.
The adults of both sexes are very similar, but a considerable difference exists in birds of different ages, the young of the year being greenish olive with a slight tinge of blue on the cheeks, wings, and outer tail-feathers, and a faint indication of the red mark on the forehead. As they advance in age they gradually assume the plumage of the adult, which is not fully accomplished until the second or third year.
The Plate represents fully adult sexes of the natural size.
PLATYCERCUS FLAVEOLUS: Gould.
J. & E. Gould del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp.
PLATYCERCUS FLAVEOLUS, Gould.
Yellow-rumped Parrakeet.
Platycercus flaveolus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 26.
I have no other information to communicate respecting this beautiful Platycercus, than that it is an inhabitant of New South Wales, and is abundant on the banks of the rivers Lachlan and Darling. The bird was first sent to this country by Captain Sturt some years since, when he presented a beautiful example with several other rare birds to the Zoological Society of London. Since that period Major Sir Thomas L. Mitchell has introduced several other specimens to England, and I am indebted to this gentleman for the only one in my cabinet. I also saw in the Museum at Sydney several specimens of this little-known bird, which had been collected by Sir Thomas during his expeditions to the Darling, &c. In all the specimens here mentioned little or no variation in their plumage is observable—a circumstance, which induces me to suspect, that, like the Rose-hill Parrakeet, the young are clothed in a similar character of plumage to the adults, or if not, that they gain the full colouring at a very early age: the sexes offer no external differences.