tn 
bo 
ioe) 
PASSERIFORMES CHAP. 
(Dicranostreptus). Chibia bracteata is the only species in Australia, 
while Buchanga leucogenys 1s said to reach Japan; B. waldeni is 
peculiar to Mayotte, and Hdolius forficatus to Madagascar and 
Joanna Island. Both sexes are typically black, with a metallic 
gloss of blue, purple, or green, though a few are greyer or browner, 
or have a little white below. The variable bill is usually large 
and more or less curved, with a 
hooked tip, a notched maxilla, and 
fairly strong rictal bristles—much 
developed in Chaetorhynchus. The 
metatarsi are short, the toes small, 
the wings long. The tail 
has only ten rectrices, and 
is generally very deeply 
forked, though 
less so in Dueru- 
Fre. 117.—Drongo. Dissemurus 
paradiseus. Xj. 
rus, Chibia, and Chaetorhyn- 
chus. In Chibia the two outer 
feathers are slightly elongated 
and turned up, in Dissemuroides 
they are produced and recurved 
at the tip, in Dieranostreptus they 
are extraordinarily lengthened 
and turned to face one another. 
In Bhringa and Dissemurus the 
long bare shafts terminate in racquets, and have a twist that brings 
the upper side inwards in the former, and one in the racquet itself 
in the latter. On the forehead a large, erect tuft occurs in Hdolius, 
a still more extensive recurved crest in Dissemurus, a bunch of 
long, silky hairs in Chibia hottentotta. A few similar hairs are 
found in C. pectoralis, and scanty plumes in C. bimaénsis ; Disse- 
muroides having the one or the other. Various species exhibit a 
tendency to lanceolate hackles on the head and neck, while the 
feathers of the former are scaly-looking in Chaetorhynchus. The 
bill and feet are black; the eyes red, white, or brown. 
These wary, active birds frequent gardens, open country, and 
forests up to at least eight thousand feet, more usually in pairs 
