420 Mr. R. S. Wray on the Structure 



or thereabouts ; but at whatever angle the bird rose, by a 

 few flaps it attained a perfectly perpendicular position, as if 

 suspended by its bill from the zenith^ with its wings quite 

 closed for a perceptible time ; it then descended rapidly 

 fifteen or twenty feet in a half-falling half-diving sort of way, 

 but without turning a somersault, though the bird changed 

 its position from head upwards to the reverse so suddenly as 

 to cause it to appear to turn over. This play it would repeat 

 three or four times in one place, and again further onwards ; 

 its mate was generally within fifty or a hundred yards, but 

 sometimes much nearer. 



I particularly noticed the call-notes; these were like ke-wee- 

 kh-streer, often repeated when the bird was playing ; at other 

 times quite a different call, like itta-jee-oiv, repeated at short 

 intervals. 



I noticed that these birds now and again dashed off from 

 their perches into the foliage of the tops of the trees, and 

 secured some prey which they carried in their claws to a 

 perch to eat. 



XLIII. — On the Structure of the Barbs, Barbules, and 

 Barbicels of a Typical Pennaceous Feather. By 

 Richard S. Wray, B.Sc. (London). 



(Plate XII.) 



Having occasion to illustrate the above structure in the 

 Index Museum of the British Museum (Natural History), 

 Professor Flower and myself came to the conclusion that the 

 best way to do so would be by the preparation of a model, 

 the making of which I undertook, and consequently I had 

 to go thoroughly into the appearances presented by the parts 

 s]3ecified. I find that although my observations correspond 

 in all main particulars with what is already known, there 

 are some points, especially in the relations of the proximal 

 barbules to each other, which have not previously been fully 

 appreciated. These points, and the fact that no good figure 

 appears to exist giving at all a full idea of the completeness 



