The Long-Tailed. 



569 



machus magnus), is another of these wonderful creatures, only- 

 known by the imperfect skins prepared by the natives. In its 

 dark velvety plumage, glossed with bronze and purple, it re- 

 sembles the Seleucides alba, but it bears a magnificent tail 

 more than two feet long, glossed on the upper surface with 

 the most intense opalescent blue. Its chief ornament, how- 

 ever, consists in the group of broad plumes which spring from 

 the sides of the breast, and which are dilated at the extremity, 

 and banded with the 

 most vivid metallic 

 blue and green. The 

 bill is long and curved, 

 and the feet black, and 

 similar to those of the 

 allied forms. The to- 

 tal length of this fine 

 bird is between three 

 and four feet. 



This splendid bird 

 inhabits the mountains 

 of New Guinea, in the 

 same district with the 

 Superb and the Six- 

 shafted Paradise Birds, 

 and I was informed is 

 sometimes found in the 

 ranges near the coast. 

 I was several times as- 

 sured by different na- 

 tives that this bird 

 makes its nest in a hole 



under ground, or under rocks, always choosing a place with two 

 apertures, so that it may enter at one and go out at the other. 

 This is very unlike what we should suppose to be the habits 

 of the bird, but it is not easy to conceive how the story orig- 

 inated if it is not true ; and all travellers know that native ac- 

 counts of the habits of animals, however strange they may 

 seem, almost invariably turn out to be correct. 



The Scale-breasted Paradise Bird (Epimachus magnificus 

 of Cuvier) is now generally placed with the Australian Rifle 



THE LONG-TAILED BIRD OP PARADISE. 



{Epimachus magnus.) 



