File:The birds of Australia (16677799250).jpg

PLATE XL.
TRICHOGLOSSUS NOYCE HOLLANDKE. (Omei.)
BLUE-BILLED LORIKEET. Genus: Trichoglossus.
THIS is surely the Brobdignagian king of the Trichoglossi. It is a noble bird, gorgeously apparelled, and so
like Trichoglossus rubritorquis that it is evidently a large, strong, and beautiful evolution of that species ;
and a lovely contrast to the sombre foliage among which it flits with lightning rapidity. The close
connection is singular from the fact that that while the Rubritorquis is a stationary example of the Avifauna of
the far North, and is confined to a restricted locality, having only one common meeting ground with its near ally
at Cape York, the Novce Hollandioe is extensvely dispersed over the whole of the eastern and south-eastern face
of the continent as far as South Australia, and even crosses to Tasmania, though its visits to that island are
irregular. In all other respects this Lorikeet so closely resembles the red-coloured Lorikeet that a description is
not necessary. The female is slightly smaller, and the scales on the breast are more defined than in the male.
Egg, roundish oval, white. Length, thirteen lines and a-half ; breadth, ten lines and a-half.
Head, cheeks, throat, royal blue, with a lighter stripe down each feather ; breast, scales of red and
yellow, with faint black marking ; abdomen, deep royal blue in centre, blotched on each side with red and yellow ;
vent, green with yellow blotches ; under tail surfaces, canary yellow at base, becoming golden green at tips ; all the
upper surfaces green, blotched at the base of the neck with scarlet and yellow ; wings, dark green on their outer
webs, inner webs, black, crossed by a broad oblique band of bright yellow ; tail, green above, passing into blue
at the tips of the two central feathers ; under tail coverts, rich yellow, with an oblong patch of green at the
extremity of each feather. Length, about fourteen inches.
Habitats : Gulf of Carpentaria, Cape York, Rockingham Bay, Port Denison, Wide Bay District, Dawson
River, G.B., Richmond and Clarence River Districts (New South Wales), Interior, Victoria, South Australia, and
Tasmania.
TRICHOGLOSSUS RUBRITORQUIS (rig. and Sorsf.).
RED-COLOURED LORIKEET. Genus: Trichoglossus.
IT is the natural bias of the human mind to judge of the whole by individual members, and if those members
are numerous enough to develope a variety, and yet do not show any such inclination, the positive element
seems to be reasonably substantiated, and a hypothesis deduced. We have hitherto regarded the Trichoglossus
as a tiny dainty bird, whose fitting home is among the aromatic flower cups. The surprise is greater, then, to
find that there are giants among the tribe of liliputians, and the Trichoglossus rubritorquis is a strong evidence of
the fact, for it is quite as large as the Rosella, and as such should seem to have no kinship with the consumers of
ambrosial fare such as the nectar of flowers.
In its habits and economy the Red-Coloured Lorikeet resembles its small congeners so closely that a
description of the one fits equally well the other, with the trifling difference that it is more restrictive in its
exclusive partiality for the flowers of the eucalypts. The tea tree (melaleuca), which provides an abundant
harvest for the Trichoglossus versicolor and others, is totally ignored by this species.
Gilbert remarks that " this species is abundant in all parts of the Coburg Peninsula and the adjacent
islands, and is an especial favourite with the natives, who carefully preserve the heads of all they kill, for the
purpose of ornamenting their persons by slinging them to the arm a little above the elbow. It is generally seen
in large flocks, feeding on the summits of the loftiest trees. Its flight is rapid in the extreme. Like the other