Crown of the head, ear-coverts, rump, breast and under surface of the body scarlet; cheeks white; feathers of the back black in the centre, and margined with intermingled scarlet and yellow; middle of the wing deep blue; primaries and secondaries white at the base, forming a very broad and decided band, and brown at the tip; tertiaries green; four middle tail-feathers washed with scarlet, the remainder white at the base, and then blue, gradually fading into white at the tip; bill yellowish horn-colour; feet dark brown. The figures represent the bird in two positions of the natural size. [Illustration: PLATYCERCUS BROWNII: _Vig. & Horsf._ _J. Gould and H.C. Richter del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] PLATYCERCUS BROWNII, _Vig. and Horsf._ Brown’s Parrakeet. _Psittacus Brownii_, Temm. in Linn. Trans., vol. xiii. p. 119. _Psittacus venustus_, Kuhl, Nov. Acta, vol. x. p. 52. _Brown’s Parrot_, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. ii. p. 139. _Platycercus Brownii_, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 282.—Lear’s Ill. Psitt., pl. 20. _Mȍon-dark?_ Aborigines of Port Essington. _Smutty Parrot_, Residents at ditto. This is a very abundant species on the northern and north-western coast of Australia, inhabiting grassy meadow-like land and the edges of swamps, mostly feeding on the ground upon the seeds of grasses and other plants, sometimes single or in pairs, but more frequently in families of from ten to twenty in number. It frequently utters a rapid succession of double notes resembling ‘_trin-se trin-se_.’ Its flight is low, somewhat rapid and zigzag, seldom farther prolonged than from tree to tree. Specimens of this bird given me by my friends Captain Grey and Mr. Bynoe from the north-west coast differ somewhat in plumage from those killed on the Cobourg Peninsula, the concentric bands on the breast are much finer, the extreme margins only of the feathers being black; I have one specimen also with the whole of the crown of the head of a deep blood-red, and others with more or less of this colour. That this kind of plumage is unusual is proved by the fact of numerous specimens from Port Essington not exhibiting it, and had I not seen others from the north-west with black crowns (with the exception of the band across the forehead), I should have regarded as specific what I now look upon as a mere local variety, or possibly a very old bird. This beautiful species has been named after Dr. Robert Brown, as a just tribute of respect for the high reputation he has attained as a scientific botanist.