Psittacus Linnei, Rss. Synonyms: 6 Psittacus polychlorus, Scpl.; Psittacus sinensis, Lthm.:

Eclectus polychlorus, Gr.; Mascarinus polychlorus, FNSCH.:

Eclectus pectoral is, Z. S.; ♀ Eclectus Linnei, Wgl.; Eclectus puniceus, Br.

German: Der Neuguinea Edelpapagei.

French: X Lori-perruche à flancs rouges, ♀ Perroquet de Linnei

THE mystery which for a long time surrounded these curious birds has at length been satisfactorily cleared up, as far, that is to say, as the wonderful difference of the colouring in the sexes is concerned, for there is still some doubt whether the subject of the present notice is not identical with the Gilola and the Ceram Eclecti, from which the male scarcely differs in any respect, and the females in so trifling a degree, that it seems almost absurd to make three distinct species, of what in all probability are nothing but local varieties of one.

The male Eclectus appears to have been first described by Scopoli in the early part of the eighteenth century, and afterwards more fully by Edwards; while the female, though mentioned by Müller in 1776, was not described till 1832, when Wagler included it in his Monograph of the Psittacidae, under the name of Eclectus grandis.

"This elegant species, which exceeds the Amazon Parrots in size, is a native of the Moluccas and New Guinea. In appearance, and the colour of its plumage, it approaches the larger Lories, a resemblance also indicated by the name given to it (Linnean Lory) by Latham and others. The bill is black, with the culmen of the upper mandible rounded; the nostrils placed at the base of the bill, and concealed from view; the eyes yellow, and the ophthalmic region entirely clothed with feathers. The head and upper neck are of a rich crimson red; the lower neck, breast, belly, and upper tail coverts, rich scarlet, with a purplish tinge. The flexure of the wings, and the outer webs of the quills, are azure blue; the vent and apical fascia of the tail yellow." Thus Selby and Jardine, who omit the distinctive mark on the breast, namely, a broad band of dark purplish blue.

The male, contrary to the usual custom among birds, is much more soberly clad than his extremely brilliant partner, the prevailing colour of his plumage being vivid green of several shades; the primaries, however, are dark blue, the flexure of the wings light blue, and the sides and inner wing coverts scarlet; the upper mandible is whitish flesh-colour; the lower dusky horn.

The length of the male bird is about sixteen inches, that of the female not much less; both are stoutly built, and have large heads. The texture of the plumage is generally fine, and the feathers thickly disposed over the body, so that the bird is comparatively independent of the weather; and if turned out during the summer, may be safely wintered out of doors.

These birds, both males and females, have been imported in increasing numbers since the time of Edwards, circa 1750; but the former were always the more numerous, and naturalists never suspected that their so-called two species were in reality the male and female of one until Dr. Meyer, the travelled director of the Natural History Museum in Dresden, first published his discovery that the well-known Green Eclectus and the Purple Eclectus, to which Wagler had given the mono of Linneus, stood to each other in the relationship of husband and wife. This announcement however was received with laughter and contemptuous ridicule, such as greeted the present writer when he made it known that our old friends the Canaries could be reared not only without egg-food, but that they would be stronger and healthier when fed wholly upon seed, than when treated in the unnatural manner resorted to by breeders from time immemorial.

However, the fact, in both cases, is indisputable; for Dr. Frenzel, by experiments in breeding, conducted under his own superintendence at Frieberg, has conclusively proved the correctness of his countryman's observations, as numerous Canary fanciers have ours by repealed trials; and the scoffs, sneers, even insults and misrepresentations of unbelievers, count for nothing, magna est Veritas et praevalebit.

The Eclecti, male and female, though handsome, and on the whole tolerably quiet birds, are not general favourites; their listless ways, and occasional screaming fits, together with their inaptitude for acquiring articulate speech, may, perhaps, account for this. True, one of them, now and then, will learn to speak a little; but Dr. Russ estimates their capacity in this respect very correctly when he says: " As talkers, they can only take third, or, at the best, secondary rank."

When acclimatised they are hardy, but when first imported decidedly delicate, and require a good deal of careful management to keep them from incontinently "going over to the majority." Nor is this to be wondered at, considering the change of climate and the difference of food. Natives of the tropics suddenly transferred to our bleak shores must feel the cold intensely. Feeders on bananas and other luscious fruit, green rice, and similar grain, do not take kindly to maize and hemp seed, which, however, with oats and canary seed, should constitute their food if they are to be kept alive in their involuntarily adopted country.

The transition from the diet they have been accustomed to, to that which is to be theirs in future must be gradual, and the effect of the change carefully noted for the first few weeks or months; but if purchased during the summer, and the feeding judiciously attended to, they will soon become acclimatised, and give no further trouble.

Though armed with powerful mandibles, they are not very destructive, and do not appear to have the same propensity for gnawing wood that is so great a drawback to the complete domestication of the larger Parrots and Cockatoos, and the Australian Parrakeets generally, but especially the Platycerci. We must, however, confess that the Eclecti do not, for the various reasons enumerated, stand very high in our esteem.

In Poultry for 1884, a writer described as follows a male Eclectus, which had taken a first prize at the preceding Crystal Palace Bird Show:-"As those who had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of 'Sir Garnet' will remember, the general colour of his plumage is vivid grass green, except upon the sides, which are ruby red; the beak is pinky red, like coral, and has a yellow tip. The size of this bird is about that of the larger African Grey Parrot; but the Eclectus has a bigger head, and is more thickly covered with feathers than our old friend 'Polly Grey.'

"It usually happens among birds that the female is more soberly clad than the male; and even in cases where the plumage of the sexes is identical in general colouring, it will be found that the tinting of the hen bird is duller than in the case of her mate; but in the present instance this order of things is reversed, for the female Eclectus is very much more brilliant in appearance than her partner; and is altogether such a different looking bird, that authors, until recently, supposed her to belong to a different species, and for a time refused to believe that she could be the female of E. polychlorus. Nevertheless, such is undoubtedly the case, as was clearly proved by the author of that splendid work, The Birds of Australia, John Gould, F.R.S., who during one of his expeditions, heard from 'the natives' that the two supposed 'species' stood to each other in the relation of husband and wife, but absolutely declined at first to believe the tale.

"However, having shot a number of birds of both 'species', he found that all the green ones were males, and all the purple ones females; facts that shook his confidence in his own opinion, while subsequent observations led him to the conclusion that the aborigines were right after all, and that he had made a mistake, which he certainly very seldom did.

"The female Eclectus then is a much more resplendently attired person than her mate, and may be thus minutely described. - The head and upper neck are a rich crimson red; the lower neck, breast, belly, and upper part of the thighs purple, with a lilac shading; the mantle, back, scapulars, wing coverts, and upper tail coverts rich scarlet, with a purplish tinge. The flexure of the wings and outer webs of the quills are sky blue, and the vent and apical fascia of the tail yellow.

"Such a superabundance of rich colouring induced the earlier ornithologists, who obtained specimens of this bird, to class it with the Lories, with which, however, it has nothing in common but the outward semblance, which is too often deceptive; for its diet consists of seeds rather than fruit, and it is quite incapable of subsisting upon honey and the nectar and pollen of flowers."

The owner of 'Sir Garnet' not considering that justice had been done to his pet, described him as follows in a subsequent number of the same journal in which the notice had appeared: "I think he is a most handsome bird, and has got as many different colours on him as the female, if you will allow me to relate them: Beak coral tipped with pale yellow, no nostrils seen; head and neck bright grass green, the feathers like hair; top of each wing bright royal blue; back of neck yellow; back bright golden green; under the wings bright crimson, green between with a rose of crimson on the front of the breast; flight feathers purple; end of the wings crossed at back. The under part of the tail is purple, upper part bright green; each feather in the tail is half green and crimson-green, and blue-green and purple. The end of each feather is shaded like a- golden geranium leaf.

"When the light is on him, he is simply grand. I think you will see by this that 'Sir Garnet' is not to be beaten by any other Parrot, and can hold his own against all comers, including even his female partner."

From these various descriptions of both the male and female Lin-nean Eclecti, and especially from the coloured plate, a very correct idea of the birds may be formed by readers who have not chanced to have seen them in the flesh, but they must be heard to be appreciated as they deserve; and although we adhere to the exactitude of the following description, we beg all who read these lines to suspend their judgment until they have had an opportunity of forming their own conclusions from personal observation.

"The Eclectus", continues the former writer, "is capable of being rendered very tame, and learns readily to imitate not only domestic sounds, but even occasionally the various words and expressions that are addressed to it, as well as to whistle. But when its beauty and accomplishments have been fully enumerated and dwelt upon, the question arises, Are these enough to counterbalance the appalling hideousness of its truly demoniacal yells? Scarcely, we think; and for our part we are quite content to leave the Eclecti, polychlorus, grandis, and the rest of them to Zoological Gardens, where their maddening shrieks are not much less terrible than those of their neighbours, the Glaucous Macaws and the Orange- and White-crested Cockatoos.

"It is not pretended, however, that a quiet, sedate, even silent specimen of this species is not to be encountered now and then; but all we can say is, that we have not as yet been fortunate enough to meet with one; and until we do we have no room for either of these birds (male and female) in our collection, whence doubtless our neighbours would soon insist upon their expulsion."

It will be noticed that while the owner of 'Sir Garnet' hastened to vindicate the character of his favourite, as regards the possession of personal beauty, he was silent in respect to the more serious imputation against what may be called its moral side; a fact that speak volumes for the correctness of the estimate from which we have quoted above.

Why German writers should have bestowed upon these birds in particular the appellation of noble Parrots (Edelpapagei), is somewhat curious; for, at least in our opinion, they are not nearly as distingue looking as the Cockatoos, for instance, or even as the Amazons, particularly the larger species of that genus.

In the Zoological Society's "List" the Eclecti occupy the third place in the sub-family to which they are allocated, that of the Palae-ornithince, family Palaeornithidae, order Psittaci, constituting the genus Eclectus, of which three species have been exhibited at different times in the Parrot House, and of which several examples survive to the present day; particularly a remarkably fine pair of Linnean Eclecti, which were for eighteen months domiciled in a large aviary in the warm and comfortable "Insect House", where with a persistency worthy of a better cause, they continued at variance, we might say deadly feud, with each other for the whole of that time; and then, when the authorities at last despaired of their ever agreeing, and removed them once more to the Parrot House, placing them together in one large cage, they for a time maintained the same mutually hostile attitude; but on our paying a visit to their prison-house a few weeks since (that (that is in the early part of March, 1887), we found them, not one on the floor, and the other on the perch, as their custom had hitherto been, but sitting "cheek by jowl", and actually engaged in feeding each other!

That is to say, the green male was attentively feeding his purple partner with grains of half-digested maize, which he brought up by a regurgitating movement from his crop for her especial benefit; - a delicate attention on his part which she seemed to greatly appreciate, as was evidenced not only by a twitching of her tail, but by a little pleased murmur, that reminded us of the purring of a young kitten; and the little comedy was continued in spite of our inquisitive inspection for several minutes; the intelligent keeper assuring us that it was only within a very few days that the couple had "made it up."

Patience and perseverance are excellent virtues, and to be commended to owners of zoological collections, as well as to other people. Had these Eclecti been suffered to remain in their spacious avairy in the Insect House, they would, in all probability, ere this, have reared a family, of which it would have been vastly interesting to have ascertained whether all the members would in the first instance have resembled their mamma, or whether the sons would, from the first, have donned the paternal livery; but, in a cage, what chance have the poor birds got?

Unfortunately none; for if again transferred to the Insect House, where their former apartment is occupied by some other birds, in all likelihood they would be "upset", and the contemplated alliance between them postponed indefinitely. Oarpe diem is the motto in such a case, or should be; but unhappily folk are not always ready to seize an opportunity when it presents itself, and the "tide which taken at the flood leads on to" success may not occur again.