Mimicry in Birds 



strong" feet and claws, and having besides a 

 clannish disposition, they are inclined to band 

 together and defend themselves against hawks 

 and crows — are not, in short, the sort of quarry 

 with which the average bird of prey cares to have 

 to do. The orioles, on the other hand, are soli- 

 tary birds with small weak feet, and bills which, 

 though stout enough in their way, are not such 

 efficient weapons as the nicely-curved and sharp- 

 pointed bill of the friar-birds. 



Now in certain islands where both friar-birds 

 and orioles occur, it is noticeable that the local 

 orioles, although belonging to a family which is 

 usually brilliant in colour, at any rate when adult, 

 are of just the same quakerish shade as the honey- 

 suckers living with them. More than that, where 

 the friar-bird shows a bald black patch round the 

 eye, there the oriole will have a patch of dark 

 feathers to match it ; the friar-bird's ruff or cowl 

 of reversed feathers will be copied by a light 

 patch on the oriole's neck, and the high-ridged 

 bill of one friar-bird is imitated by its correspond- 

 ing oriole having a similar Roman nose. The 

 sum total of these remarkable resemblances is 

 that the birds are so well matched that naturalists 

 getting hold of their skins easily mistake the 

 orioles for honey-suckers. I know I did myself 

 when I first saw one of these "mimicking" orioles 

 in a drawer full of oriole skins, thinking that some 



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