ECIECTUS PQ UCHLOMJS.
JGmJd/tWHart'. tULçbhth/
ECLECTUS POLYCHLORUS.
Green Lory.
Psittacus polychlorus, Scopoli, Del. Faun. et Flor. Insubr. ii. p. 87 (1786).
Psittacus sinensis, Gmelin, S. N. i. p. 337 (1788).
Psittacus magnus, Gmelin, S. N. i. p. 344 (1788).
Psittacus viridis, Latham, Index Orn. i. p. 125 (1790).
Psittacus lateralis, Shaw, Gen.. Zool. viii. p. 490 (1811).
Mascarinus prasinus, Lesson, Traité, p. 188 (1831).
Eclectus linnai, Wagler, Monogr. Psittac. p. 571, pl. xxii. (1832).
Eclectus polychlorus, Gray, Genera of Birds, ii. p. 418 (1845).—Id. List Psittacidæ Brit. Mus. p. 66 (1859).
Eclectus punicèus, Bonap. P. Z. S. 1849, p. 142.—Rosenb. J. f. O. 1864, p. 114.
Eclectus grandis, Bonap. Consp. Gen. Av. i. p. 4 (1850).—Id. Rev. et Mag. de Zool. 1854, p. 155.
Eclectus westermanni, Bp. Consp. i. p. 4 (1850).
Eos pmiceus, Lichtenstein, Nomencl. Av. p. 71 (1854).
Polychlorus magnus, Sclater, P. Z. S. 1857, p. 226.
Mascarinus polychlorus, Finsch, Nederl. Tijdsch. Berigten, p. xvi. (1863).
Psittacodis magna, Rosenb. Tijdschr. Nederl. Indie, 1863, p. 226.—Id. J. f. 0 . 1864, p. 114.
Psittacus linnai, Finsch, Neu-Guinea, p. 157 (1865).
W e r e any thing required to assure the student o f ornithology th at there is still plenty o f work to do in the
science, the history o f the present bird would afford a text for a discourse on that subject. A cage-bird
in every menagerie of any repute, described and figured over and over again during the last hundred years,
and for the last twenty years by no means rare in collections, the present species might have been supposed
to have been well understood. No one, therefore, was prepared for the astounding assertion made by Dr.
Meyer in 1874, th at the Lories o f the Moluccas, considered by everybody to represent many distinct
species, were nothing but the males and females o f perhaps three. I candidly confess th at I was for
a long time extremely sceptical on the su b je c t; but after examining specimens sent me by Dr. Meyer,
I must admit that he is perfectly right, and th at this curious fact must be accepted by ornithologists. The
story comes better from Dr. Meyer himself than from m e ; and I therefore give the note which he has
ju s t forwarded-:—
" ‘ When crossing the sea from the Island o f Mafoor to the Island o f Mysore, in Geelvink Bay, in the
year 1873, having spread out before me, on board o f my small vessel, the ornithological harvest which I had
reaped on Mafoor, it struck me th at all the specimens o f Eclectus polychlorus, Scop., were labelled as
males, and all those o f E . linnai, Wagler, as females; and I had six green males ( polychlorus) and nine red
females (linnoei). T h e suspicion then arose in my mind th at it could not have been by chance th at I had
only shot the males o f E . polychlorus and the females o f E . linncei.’
“ W ith these words o f introduction I commenced the first paper which I published on the sexual
differences in the genus Eclectus, in the year 1874 (Verb. d. zool.-bot. Ges. Wien, 1874, p. 179, and Zool.
Garten, May 1874, p. 161). Since then I have been obliged to write three more notes on the same
subject, because at first the opinion th at the green parrots are indeed the males o f the red ones was almost
universally contested. Nevertheless I already said in my first paper (/. c.), ‘ T h e fact, discovered by
myself, is thoroughly ascertained, and cannot be doubted.’
“ In my second note (Mitth. d. k. zool. Mus. Dresden, i. p. 11, 1875) I chiefly disputed Prof. Schlegel’s
view, who had promulgated the following opinion, and supposed it to be well founded:— ‘Adopting this
hypothesis, we should be obliged in the meantime to accuse o f negligence four o f our most experienced
travellers; and to establish among the parrots the quite exceptional case o f a singular sexual difference
would be the more remarkable, as it would besides offer in the females variations constant according to
the localities’ (Mus. d’Hist. Nat. des Pays-Bas, P sitt. 1874, p. 17). By the four most experienced travellers
o f the Leiden Museum, Prof. Schlegel meant, as far as I am aware, Salomon Muller, Dr. Bernstein, Hoedt,
and Von Rosenberg. But I proved th at even the facts published in the Catalogues o f the Leiden Museum
show th at I am right, as, for instance, among seven specimens o f E . ihtermedius (green) six are marked as
males and only one as a female; and, on the other hand, among fourteen specimens o f E . grandis (re d )