_J. & E. Gould del._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._
]
TRICHOGLOSSUS PORPHYROCEPHALUS, _Diet._
Porphyry-crowned Lorikeet.
_Psittacus purpurea_, Diet., Phil. Mag. 1832, vol. xi. p. 387.
_Psittacus purpureus_, Wagl. Mon. Psitt. in Abhand., vol. x. p. 747.
_Trichoglossus porphyrocephalus_, Diet., Trans. Linn. Soc., vol. xvii.
p. 553.
_Psittacula Florentis_, Bourj. de St. Hil., Supp. Le Vaill. Hist. des
Perr., pl. 84.
_Kȍw-ar_, Aborigines of Western Australia.
This 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
_Psittacus purpurea_; but in the seventeenth volume of the “Linnean
Transactions” it is correctly placed in the genus _Trichoglossus_, 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 _Eucalypti_, in company with _Trichoglossus 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 creeping 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; shoulder light blue; under surface of
the wing crimson; primaries blackish brown, margined externally with
deep green, the extreme edge being greenish yellow; tail green above,
golden beneath; throat and under surface greenish grey, passing into
golden green on the flanks and under tail-coverts; bill black; irides in
some dark brown, in others light reddish brown, with a narrow ring of
orange round the pupil; feet bluish flesh-colour.
The figures are of the natural size.
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