From the typical genus Platycercus, we now pass on to a group composed of birds of smaller dimensions, but eminent for their delicate form and pleasing plumage, and which have not inaptly been termed miniature analogues of the splendid Maccaws. In this lovely genus, the tail, in some species, as Nanodes venustus, and Nan. pulchellus, Vigors and Hors. field, retains to a considerable extent the breadth and depression of the Broadtails. In the Nanodes discolor, Vigors and Horsfield, as previously remarked, it in a great measure loses that character, and assumes the form, exhibited by the Ring-Parakeets or genus Paloeornis, Vigors, the legs and feet as in Platycercus, are also slender and lengthened, and the claws but slightly hooked. This group forms the genus Nanodes of Vigors and Horsfield, or that of Euphemia, Wagler, distinguished by the following characters: - Bill short, higher than long, the upper mandible with the culmen rounded, and the tomia in the typical species without a distinct tooth or emargination, under mandible very short, inclining inwards, emarginate, with the apex broad, quadrate, and slightly sinuated. Palatial cutting membranes large. Nostrils round, lateral, placed in the slightly raised cere at the base of the bill. Wings of mean length, 8ubacuminate, the first quill a little shorter than the second and third, which are the longest and nearly equal, second, third, and fourth quills with their exterior webs slightly emarginate near the middle. Tail graduated, cuneiform, slightly depressed, the feathers gradually narrowing towards the tip. . Feet slender, the tarsi and toes elongated; claws slightly hooked.

The first specimen of this genus is the Nanodes venustus.