49
LOPHOPSITTACUSNEWTON.
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.
Only known from osseous remains and the above-quoted drawing and notes.
35 tarsi and tibiae, and 60 complete and incomplete lower mandibles and fragments of palatine bones in the Tring Museum.
Habitat: Mauritius.
