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have I had to release him from tight places and set him on his

feet again, and yet to this day, when touched by the human hand,

he will startle the neighbours far and wide with his fearful cries.

The instant his feet touch the ground, the cries cease, he shakes

out his feathers, elevates his head, and gives a defiant crow,

saying as plainly as plain can be, “ Escaped again, old chap ; it

would take a lot of such bipeds as you to get over me.” If it had

been the privilege of the poet Gray to have lived within ear¬

shot of my aviary, he would not have wasted ink and paper over

“ Berkley’s roof,” but would rather have said :—


“The shrieks of death, thro’ Cromwell Grove that ring,


Shrieks of an agoniz’d Lap-wing!”


and it is to this big coward and swaggering braggart that Bob

bows down and does obeisance.


In the Museum Catalogue (Key to the Species, Vol. VII.

p. 6), the eleven described species in the genus Myiopho)ieus are

divided into two groups, those which have white tips to the

median wing-coverts and those which have not. Bob has the

white tips, and therefore should come into the first group. Of

the three species included in this group, only one has a black

bill, and that is the Blue Whistling-bird from China, Myiophoneus

cceruleiis, of which I will speak later. The two new species are

unlike; but there is one in the other group which has several

points of resemblance, M. dicrorhynchus, a bird too coming from

Sumatra, which might easily be picked up by a Queensland

steamer. This species is thus described in the Catalogue :—

Adult. General colour above dull purplish black, with a large

tuft of white feathers at the side of the lower back and rump ;

no slioulder-patch, and no white tips to the median coverts, the

wings and tail being also like the back, the latter only a little

more blue; lores, sides of face, and ear-coverts black, with a

shade of purplish blue across the upper forehead ; entire under

surface of body dusky black, with concealed white bases to all

the breast feathers. Total length 13 inches, culmen 1.5, wing

6.4, tail 4.4, tarsus 2.1. At page 7 it is stated, “ glistening ends

of feathers obsolete; bill blackish, horn-coloured at the tip and

on the lower mandible.” The points of similarity between this

bird and mine are noticeable, but the points of difference are too

marked to be easily explained away. Each bird has a tuft on its

side, but that of M. dicrorhynchus seems to be made up of

white instead of party-coloured feathers. The general colour

above is not dull purplish black ; my bird now has both the

shoulder-patch and white tips to the median coverts ; the under



