rosella

n.

1) A bird, Platycercuseximius, the Rosehill (q.v.).

1847. L. Leichhardt, `Overland Expedition,' p. 80:

«The common white cockatoo, and the Moreton Bay Rosella parrot,were very numerous.»

1884. R. L. A. Davies, `Poems and Literary Remains,' p. 99:

«Saw the bright rosellas fly,

With breasts that glowed like sunsets

In the fiery western sky.»

1890. `The Argus,' June 7, p. 13, col. 5:

«The solitudes where the lorikeets and rosellas chatter.»

1896. `The Melburnian,' Aug. 28, p. 60:

«As [the race] sweeps past the Stand every year in a closebright mass the colours, of the different clubs, are asdazzling and gay in the sun as a brilliant flight of galahsand rosellas.»

2) In Northern Australia, it is a slang name for a Europeanwho works bared to the waist, which some, by a gradual processof discarding clothing, acquire the power of doing. Thescorching of the skin by the sun produces a colour whichprobably suggested a comparison with the bright scarlet of theparrakeet so named.