[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 22nd December, 1874.]

Whilst I was in England superintending the publication of my Birds of New Zealand, Mr. Dawson Rowley of Chichester House, Brighton, forwarded to me for inspection the skin of a Parrakeet, received from the South Island, which, on account of its small size, he took to be a new or hitherto undescribed species. On examination it proved to be only a small example of Platycercus novœ-zealandiœ—corresponding in fact with Gray's so-called Platycercus aucklandicus—and in returning the specimen to Mr. Rowley I could only express my regret that he was doomed to disappointment.

Since my return to the colony, however, my attention has been directed to a very large series of Parrakeets collected in the Canterbury Province by Mr. F. R. Fuller and his assistants; and, after making due allowance for the great variation in size which members of this genus exhibit, I am unable to come to any other conclusion than that there really does exist another species, having similar plumage to Platycercus novœ-zealandiœ, but so much smaller in size as to be even less than some examples of the yellow-fronted Parrakeet (P. auriceps).

The following are the measurements of a specimen in the Canterbury Museum:—

A better idea of the relative size may be formed when I state that the bill in this bird holds an intermediate position between figs. 6 and 7, Plate VIII., and that the general proportions of the body bear a corresponding relation thereto.

Mr. Fuller, who has dissected some hundreds of these Parrakeets, informs me that the bones of this small red-fronted species are easily distinguished from those of Platycercus novœ-zealandiœ, being decidedly weaker and more slender—resembling, in fact, those of P. auriceps and P. alpinus.

It may also be mentioned that all the specimens of the supposed new species have come from one part of the country—Canterbury North—and