28 PAKADISEID.E 



close together right over his head, added to this there were the gorgeous metallic golden- 

 green tipped plumes of his body spread out in circular form around his breast. The bill 

 was pointed upwards, showing to advantage the resplendent green scale-like feathers of the 

 throat, and giving the bird the appearance of a living jewel. All the time he was swaying 

 his body backwards and forwards, and twisting and turning his head with seeming delight. 

 The other birds kept hopping around him with out-spread wings, evidently taking great pleasure 

 in his actions, and occasionally like him uttering their loud and somewhat discordant note. 

 All the stomachs of the birds of this species we examined, contained insects, small fruits, 

 berries, and seeds." 



As pointed out by Gould in his "Handbook," and also in the Supplement to his "Birds of 

 Australia," both the late Mr. John MacGillivray and tlie late Mr. I-\ Strange respectively noted 

 the extraordinary noise made by the males of Craspedophora alberti and Ptilorhis paradisea 

 during flight. To a less degree this sound may be produced by moving backwards and forwards 

 the primaries and secondaries of a dried skin. 



Mr. Robert Hislop, Junr., late of " Wyalla," Bloomfield River, who has found many nests 

 and eggs of this species, writes me:— "There are always a few of Queen \'ictoria's Rifle-birds 

 about here, but they are more numerous about the beginning of July, remaining throughout 

 the spring to breed, and departing again at the end of January. Usually they are met with in 

 the scrubs, and I have often seen the females and young males running up the tree-trunks and 

 branches in search of insects out in the open forest-lands, but never a fuUy-plumaged male. In 

 fact I have never observed the adult males except in the breeding season. These birds live 

 chiefly on insects and berries, but they often come into tlie garden and eat the paw-paws and 

 granadillas off our trees and vines. The nest is composed of long twigs, vines, rootlets, and 

 broad leaves, and very often a cast-off snake-skin is worked into the outer portion of it. They 

 are usually built in a Screw Pine (Pandanus), from five to fifteen feet from the ground. I have 

 also found them in a Fan Palm (Liaiala mue/kri), and on one occasion in the leafy stems of a 

 vine growing up the trunk of a Bean Tree ( Castanospermum austrak) at a height of thirty 

 feet. On one Screw Pine, I found the nests of three successive seasons, and a pair of birds are 

 building there again this year. Two eggs are laid for a sitting, and I believe two broods are 

 sometimes reared in the breeding season, which commences early in September and continues 

 until the middle of January. In one season I obtained three sets of eggs from the same pair of 

 birds, robbing the nests as soon as each set was laid." 



The nest is an open cup-shaped- structure, outwardly formed of long stout twigs and broad 

 leaves, the inner wall consisting chiefly of broad leaves, intermingled with long spiral tendrils 

 of climbing plants — the latter material, with very fine and nearly straight plant stems, being 

 also used as a slight lining for the bottom of the nest. In several nests I have examined, I find 

 that thin sticks are used as well as strong twigs in their outer construction. .\n average nest 

 measures externally six and a half inches in diameter by a depth of three inches; the inner cup 

 four inches and a half by a depth of two inches. The eggs, usually two in number for a sitting, 

 are remarkable for their richness of, colour, and the character of their markings. They are 

 of the usual Bird of Paradise type, and are doubtless among the most beautiful of any of our 

 Australian birds' eggs. In shape they are typically true ovals, the shell being close-grained 

 and its surface very glossy. The ground colour varies from a reddish flesh-colour to a warm 

 creamy-buff, which is longitudinally streaked and sparingly freckled with different shades of 

 red and purplish-red, intermingled with reddish-violet and purplish-grey markings, some of 

 them appearing as if beneath the surface of the shell. Occasionally eggs are found with one or 

 two light umber, or sienna streaks, intermingled with the typically coloured markings. In most 

 specimens the longitudinal streaks are long, bold, and evenly distributed over the shell; in 

 others the colours are laid one over or obliquely across another; in a few, conspicuous streaks 



