Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 21



The Ground Parrakeets of Australia, of which this is one of the most beautiful, form a small but richly coloured group of birds, remarkable for the peculiar structure of their feet, which leads them to frequent the ground more than any of their family. In the form of their bill, wings, and tail, they exhibit a close resemblance, in miniature, to the Maccaws of the New World, and may justly be supposed to represent those birds in the Southern hemisphere.

We received two specimens of the Blue-fronted Parrakeet, some years ago, from Van Dieman's Land; yet even there it is considered scarce; nor did we observe it in any of the collections in Paris.

Assenting, in a great measure, to those general principles of arrangement which several eminent Ornithologists have proposed regarding this family, we nevertheless consider that the succession of affinities, and even the nature of the leading groups, are not yet correctly understood. In the present case, we would rather have seen Nanodes placed as a sub-genus to Pezoporus; from which it merely differs in the comparative shortness of the feet. The connexion between the two forms, moreover, is so close as not, in our judgment, to admit the intervention of Platycercus, or any other group yet discovered.