Ornithological and Other Oddities 



of his family ; but even if a brown variation 

 occurred in Australian orioles they would have 

 nothing to pass off as the friar's bald black head. 

 Possibly, too, the brown variation has never 

 occurred, so the orioles have to get along on 

 their own merits. The mimicking species in the 

 islands farther west have evidently been more 

 fortunate, as the friar-birds there not being - bald- 

 headed, their garb was more easily counterfeited. 



Farther west again the range of the friar-birds 

 ceases, and here the orioles blaze out in black 

 and gold, and even black and scarlet ; nature 

 not having bred them to a dingy model, the 

 natural tendency of a green coloration to sport 

 into yellow, and of brown to produce red (as 

 shown in the brown Kaka parrot [Nestor rneridio- 

 nalis) of New Zealand), has had free play. It 

 is noticeable that these richly-coloured orioles 

 have longer wings than the dull mimetic forms, 

 so that increased power of flight has evidently 

 proved an ample means of protection where 

 there was no chance of shuffling. Indeed, in 

 Yarkand, golden orioles (Oriolus kundoo) have 

 been seen to drive off a big jungle-crow as 

 boldly as the friar-birds which their shabby 

 relatives copy. 



As a further instance of the essentially fortuitous 



character of these resemblances, attention may be 



profitably directed to the particularly beautiful one 



66 



