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Show 128 DR. O. FINSCH ON A RARE PARROT. [Feb. 11, The first is the beautiful Eclectus corneliee, Bp. (Finsch, Parrots, ii. p. 348), well described and figured in P. Z. S. 1849, pl. xi., and seen once or twice liviug in the Zoological Gardens at London and Amsterdam, but without any information about the dwelling-place -probably from one of the islands of the Malayan archipelago. Another uniform red one is the Psittacus unicolor of Shaw (Finsch, Parrots, ii. p. 924), a very doubtful species, and known only from the descriptions of the older authors. It is not quite impossible that the P. unicolor may be related to the Eclectus corneliee, being evidently a short-tailed Eclectus or Pionias, and not an Eos, as Mr. G. R. Gray suggests (List Psitt. p. 20) ; but it differs in having all the quills and the bill red. Levaillant mentions having seen two specimens in the collection of M . Temminck; but that 1 believe is one of his mystifications, and his figure (pl. 125) is only copied from Shaw's; for there is no reference to the Lori unicolor in Temminck's ' Catalogue Systematique du Cabinet d'Ornithologie,' of the year 1807. If that species really exists, I believe it will be found also in the Moluccan region; but I consider it to be more probable that the P. unicolor was based upon a manufactured specimen, and never will be found again. A third thoroughly red Parrot is an Arara, mentioned by Alexander von Humboldt (Reise in die Aequinoctial-Gegenden des neuen Continents, iv. 1860, p. 6; Finsch, Parrots, ii. p. 935) in the following short note : - " In one of the huts of the Pacimonales we bought an Ara, being a species of Aras, about 17" long, and of an entirely purple plumage, like the Psittacus macao." The celebrated traveller made this notice at the missionary station San Francisco Solano, on the left side of the Casiquiare, a country not yet explored by zoological collectors. If the information is correct, there can be no doubt that the Ara might be certainly new, and one of the most wonderful species in the whole tribe. It must be recollected, however, that Von Humboldt was not at all an ornithologist; and there may have happened a mistake, as in the case of the celebrated Ca-perote of Madeira, which was nothing more than our well-known Sylvia atricapilla, Lath. About all those questionable points we must wait for further explanations. These will come, perhaps, as unexpected as in the case of Domicella rubiginosa, Bp. (Finsch, Parrots, ii. p. 781), also a red-coloured species, which was for a long time said to be a native of New Guinea, but was found by the Novara expedition on the small island Puynipet, of the Senjawin group, in a region where nobody would have expected Parrots at all. Now we will give for the first time a full description of the excellent DOMICELLA CARDINALIS. (Plate XI.) Lori cardinal, Hombr. et Jacq. Voy. au Pole Sud, Atlas, pl. 24 bis i. 2 (1843). Lorius cardinalis, Jacq. et Pucher. Voy. au Pole Sud, Zoologie, iii. (1853) p. 103 ; Hartl. Journ. f. Ornith. (1854) p. 165; G. R. Gray' Gen. of B. App. p. 20. |
