Part 27

Plyctolophus productus Gould, P.Z.S. 1836, p. 19.

Nestor productus Gould, Syn. Austr. B. and adj. Isl. pt. I, pl., fig. 1 (183--?).

Centrurus productus Bp., Naumannia 1856, Consp. Psitt. No. 265.

Latham's original description is as follows: "Length thirteen inches. Bill very long and hooked, and upper mandible measuring almost two inches, the under three-quarters, colour dusky; plumage in general greenish ash, inclining to brown, and clouded here and there with orange as in the 'Crossbill,' but the edges of the feathers of the back dun colour; all the under parts of the body mixed yellow and dull orange; rump dull red; under wing coverts dull yellow; thighs brown; the quills reach almost to the end of the tail, which is somewhat, but not greatly, cuneiform; both quills and tail are brown, the former marked on the inner webs with five or six whitish bars; legs dusky, toes very long. Inhabits New South Wales. I met with a fine specimen of it in the collection of Thomas Wilson, Esqre."

It has long been a question whether Nestor productus of Gould and Nestor norfolcensis of Pelzeln were really distinct or only individual varieties of one species. I had for a long time considered them to be merely individual varieties, for I could not persuade myself that a small island like Philip Island, almost contiguous to Norfolk Island, could have a different species of Nestor to that found on the larger island. Since commencing to write this book, however, I have come to somewhat different conclusions. In the first place no special locality is given for N. productus by the earlier authors, in the same way as in the case of Notornis alba, which, like the Nestor, was said to come from N. S. Wales. This fact is easily explained, as N. S. Wales and Norfolk Island were both penal settlements in the early days, and there was intercourse by regular vessels plying between these colonies and Lord Howe's Island. Now we find in the case of several other birds that distinct local forms occur on Norfolk and Lord Howe's Islands, while as far as I know there is no other record of a distinct bird from Philip Island. I therefore believe that Nestor productus inhabited both Norfolk and Philip Islands, and that all specimens extant are from Philip Island, where it lingered some years longer than on the main island, while the specimens of Ferdinand Bauer and Governor Hunter, and possibly the supposed N. norfolcensis of {46} Canon Tristram's collection, now in Liverpool, had been brought from Lord Howe's Island in cages and were kept as pets in Norfolk Island; and then, as the value of exact data in those early days of our science was unknown, the references were made to the place whence the specimens were seen or brought. One thing however is certain, the bill in Ferdinand Bauer's sketch is evidently a monstrous growth produced by captivity, for Latham expressly describes the bill of Governor Hunter's bird as ending in a long thin point. The differences of N. norfolcensis are the dull crimson sides of face, chin, and throat; dull green head and hind neck, and the total absence of bars on the tail. The plate given herewith is a reproduction of the Liverpool bird, with the bill of Ferdinand Bauer's sketch added, as this is wanting in that bird, and in the corner a head of the specimen of N. productus, purchased for the Tring Museum, when the late Mr. Wallace's Museum at Distington, Cumberland, was dispersed.

I have carefully examined the three fine specimens of Nestor productus in the British Museum, and the conclusion I have come to is that the bird described by Gould as the adult of his N. productus was an abnormal specimen, and was in relation to normal N. productus what the aberrations called "superbus" and "esslingi" are to N. meridionalis. The bills of the British Museum specimens are very different. The one from the Bell collection has the long, thin bill, but it is at least half-an-inch to three-quarters shorter than those in the Tring and Florence specimens.

Habitat: Philip Island and probably Norfolk Island.

One in Tring, three in London, one in Florence, two in Vienna, one in Prague, two in Leyden, one in Amsterdam, are known to me.

The two specimens in the Vienna Museum were both bought in 1839. One from Ward, with a short bill, brown chest and throat, and a very wide yellow breast-band. The other from Baron von Hügel, which has a long bill and very red cheeks and chin. {47}

NESTOR NORFOLCENSIS PELZELN.

(PLATE 6, full figure.)

Long-billed Parrakeet Latham, Gen. Hist. II, p. 171 (1822).

Nestor norfolcensis Pelzeln, Sitzb. k. Akad. Wiss. XLI, pp. 322-325, pl.--(1860--detailed description from the manuscript of the late botanist, Ferdinand Lucas Bauer, and figure of head with an evidently abnormally developed bill. The specimen was from Norfolk Island; it had disappeared before Pelzeln's time).

Latham's original description is as follows: "Length above 12 inches. Bill very long and curved, thick halfway from the base, but tapering quite to a point at the tip, and under mandible truncated at the end, colour of both, dusky; head and neck dull green; sides under the eyes, chin and throat pale crimson; upper parts of the body, wings and tail dusky; breast yellowish; belly, thighs and vent more or less crimson; tail cuneiform; legs brown."

"One of these was in possession of Governor Hunter, who brought it from Norfolk Island; from the bill it seems related to the other, but the tail is cuneiform in a much greater degree, without any bars across it."

The only bird of this species extant is the one in Liverpool, from the Tristram collection.

Governor Hunter's specimen and Bauer's bird were both brought from Norfolk Island, but as they were cage-birds, and differed so markedly from N. productus, I, for reasons given under N. productus, believe this bird came from Lord Howe's Island.

Habitat: Lord Howe's Island (?).

{49}

LOPHOPSITTACUS NEWTON.

The huge bill and peculiar shaped crest, together with the--apparently, i.e., if the figure is correct--very short wings are characteristic of this genus. (P.Z.S. 1875, p. 350.)

LOPHOPSITTACUS MAURITIANUS (OWEN).

(PLATE 7.)

Broad-billed Parrot Owen, Trans. Zool. Soc. VI, p. 53 (1866).

Psittacus mauritianus Owen, Ibis, p. 168 (1866).

Psittacus (Lophopsittacus) mauritianus A. Newton, P.Z.S. (1875), pp. 349, 350.

Lophopsittacus mauritianus Newton, Enc. Brit. (ed. 9) III, p. 732, ff. 44, 46 (1875).

This extraordinary parrot was first described and made known to science by Professor Owen in 1866. He described it from 2 lower mandibles, much damaged, which were dug up from the Mare aux Songes. Except a few further osseous remains, mostly collected by Sir Edward Newton, nothing more of importance was found relating to this bird till Professor Schlegel discovered in the Library of Utrecht the manuscript journal kept during the voyage to Mauritius in A.D. 1601-1602 of Wolphart Harmanszoon, in which among other items of natural history there is a sketch of Lophopsittacus from life, and the statement that it was wholly of a grey-blue colour. From the fact that this bird is not mentioned by the voyagers who visited Mauritius in the 2nd and 3rd decades of the 18th century, it is probable that it was one of the first of the Mascarene birds to become extinct. This is easily understood when we consider that the bird was apparently unable to fly, and would like all big parrots prove excellent eating.