616 



NATURAL lllSTOllY OF lilliUS. 



lighter grayish beneath, and streaked witli dusky on tliroat, breast, and flanks. Its 

 song is very celebrated. To quote 3Ir. Seebohni : "Its voice is marvellously rich and 

 flute-like. The call-note during the j)airing season sounds like the words ' who are 

 you ' in a full, rajiid whistle ; and it.s song is a tc/itct, li, v<.e-o, whence its vernacular 

 name in Holland of 'Kiel-i-vee-vo.' Some slight nioditicalions in its song are appar- 

 ently produced Viy prefixing or intcrluding its call-note. It is a j)ity the song is so 

 short ; for in quality it is scarcely exceeded by the song of any other bird." It feeds 

 principally on insects and fruit, and may in the summer do considerable damage to 

 the cherries. 



We shall regard the family of PAitADi.s.Eio.E, or birds-of-Paradise as composed of 

 three distinct sub-families, the bower-birds, the long-billed Paradise birds, and the 





Fig. 254. — Oriolus oriolus, golden oriole. 



true, typical ParadisieiiiiC. The first mentioned group is ])ossibly linked to some 

 Tiiiialiine forms, with which Sharjie j)uts it, but the fact that a supi>osed bower- 

 bird, Sericulua xanthogaster, was shown by Salvadori in 1876 to be the young of 

 Xanthomelus aureus, one of the long-billed Paradise birds, is quite suggestive. 



The bower-birds are peculiar to Australia and New Guinea, one of the oldest and 

 best known S))ecies being the satin bower-bird (Ptilonor/ii/nc/ius violaceus) figured 

 on the ))late facing this ]iage. It is a large bird, of the size of a common magpie, 

 the male pur|)lish black, the female chiefly grayish green, underneath pale yellowish, 

 barred crosswise with dusky. The bower-birds have received their name from the 

 peculiar structures which they build apparently only for the purpose of pleasure as 

 Bportiug-places where the males meet to i)ay their court to the females, and which are 



