PARADISE-BIRDS, 



61 



occasionally quite hiding his head ; at times, stretched 

 upright, he flaps them, as if he intended to take fight, 

 .and then, with a sudden movement, gives himself a 

 half-turn so that he faces the spectators, puffing out 

 his silky-white lower feathers. Now he bursts into 

 his beautiful melodious warbling song, so enchanting to 

 hear, but so difficult to describe. Some weeks ago I 

 was crossing a meadow and heard the song of a Skylark 

 high up in the heavens and I exclaimed at once, ' That 

 is the love-chant of my King Bird.' He sings with a 

 low bubbling note, displaying all the while his beauti- 

 ful fan-like side plumes, which he opens and closes, in 

 time with the 'variations of his song. These fan-plumes 

 can only be expanded when his wings are closed, and 

 during this part of the display he closes his wings and 

 spreads out his short tail, pressing it cloee over his 

 back, so as to throw the Ion or .tail -wires over his head, 

 while he gently swings his body from side to side. The 

 .spiral tips of the wires look like small balls of burnished 

 green metal, and the swaying movement gives them the 

 effect of being slowly tossed from one side to the other, 

 .so that I have named this part of the display the 

 ' juggling.' The swaying of the body seems to keep 

 time with the song, and at intervals, with a swallowing 

 .movement of his throat, the bird raists and lowers his 

 head. Then comes the finale, which lasts only for a 

 few seconds. He suddenly turns right /round and shows 

 his back, the white- fluffy feathers under the tail 

 ^bristling in his excitement ; he bends down on the 

 perch in the attitude of a fighting cock, his widely 

 opened bill showing distinctly the extraordinary light 

 apple-green colour of the gullet, and sings the same 

 gurgling notes without once closing his bill, and with a 

 tilow dying away movement of his tail and body. A 

 single drawn-out note is then uttered, the tail and wires 

 are lowered, and the dance ajid song are over. 



" The King Bird has another form of display which 

 he very rarely exhibits, and only on three or four occa- 

 sions have I seen him go through this performance. 

 Dropping under the perch the bird walks backwards 

 and forwards in an inverted position with his wings ex- 

 panded. Suddenly he closes his wings and lets his body 

 fall straight downwards, looking exactly like a crimson 

 pear, his blue legs being stretched out to their full 

 length, and his. feet clinging to the perch. The effect is 

 very curious and -weird, and the performance is so like 

 that of an acrobat suddenly dropping on to his toes on 

 the cross-bar of a trapeze that I have named this 

 ' acrobatic ' display. It has been witnessed on different 

 days to his 'juggling' display. While giving his acro- 

 batic performance he sings the whole time, but never 

 .shows his side plumes ; and when he is in the pendu- 

 lous position his body sways gently as if it were in- 

 fluenced by a fitful breeze. The -whole of this perform- 

 ance takes but a very few seconds." 



It has often been incorrectly asserted, and Darwin 

 has repeated the error in his " Descent of Man," that 

 " the power of song and brilliant colours have rarely 

 been both acquired by the males of the sarnie species." 

 To those who have kept a great many species, it is well 

 known that many of the most gorgeously coloured birds 

 sing remarkably well : amongst tihe Thrushes the Blue 

 Rock-Thrush is one of the finest songsters, Leiothrix 

 is a notoriously grand songster, several of the gorgeous 

 Tanagers sing sweetly, the flaming Virginian Cardinal 

 is an acknowledged vocalist of merit, and many of the 

 brightly coloured Finches sing excellently ; the 

 Icteridos (with their startling contrasts of yellow, 

 orange, scarlet with black and white) number not a few 

 fine singers in their ranks, the Fruit-suckers of the East 

 (Chloropsis) are fine performers, and here we have one 



of the most brilliant of all living birds the King Bird 

 of Paradise gifted with a love-chant not unlike that 

 of the Skylark. On the other hand many sombrely 

 coloured birds are poor performers, and I regard the 

 vocal ability of our Song Thrush as very inferior 

 to that of our far more attractively coloured Blackbird. 

 The notion has probably arisen from the fact that the 

 Nightingale is modestly coloured but a prince of song- 

 sters, and it has been assumed that vocal power has 

 Ibeen given as a compensation for loss of colour, but 

 that is all poetical fiction. 



[The Calendar issued with Canary and Cage-Bird 

 Life, 1910, depicted the Marquis Raggi, Greater, Blue, 

 and King Birds of Paradise. ED.] 



GREEN MANTJCODE (Manucodia chalybata). 

 General colour above rich purple, the inner -webs of 

 flights and tail-feather; blackish ; the outer wing- 

 coverts washed with steel-blackish ; nape, hind-neck, 

 and mantle slightly tinted with steel-greenish ; sides of 

 face and neck dark green ; all the feathers of the head 

 close-set and velvety ; feathers of chin, throat, and fore- 

 neck to sides of neck glossy golden green, crinkled and 

 curled ; rest of under-surface deep purple, a few of the 

 abdominal feathers slightly glossed with greenish ; under 

 wing-coverts black ; the outer edge of wing washed with 

 green ; bill and feet black. Female not differentiated. 

 Hah., N.W. New Guinea. I have failed to discover 

 any field-notes relating to this species. An example 

 reached the London Zoological Gardens in March, 1881, 

 and, according to Dr. Russ, this is the only instance 

 in which it has been imported. 



CHAPTER IV. 



CROW- LIKE BIRDS (Corvidcc)* 

 (Sub-family Corvince). 



LARGE-BILLED CROW (Corvus culminatus). 



Above steely black ; the crown, back, wing-coverts, 

 secondaries, and outer webs of .tail feathers glossed -with 

 violet; primary-coverts, false wing, outer webs of 

 primaries, inner wefos oi' secondaries and tail-feathers, 

 and sides of face and neck glossed with steel-green ; 

 under surface of body blue- black -with slight violet 

 reflections ; throat-feathers somewhat lanceolate, 

 greenish-black shading into purplish on lower throat ; 

 bill and feet black. Female not differentiated, but prob- 

 ably with a shorter bill than the male. Hab., Indian 

 peninsula. 



Jerdon ("Birds of India," Vol. II., p. 297) 

 says : " It is gregarious, feeds on offal and car- 

 rion ; its flight is strong and rapid, and it 

 is often seen tormenting kites and other large 

 birds. It is familiar in its habits, and is gene- 

 rally seen feeding in villages or around the hill 

 stations ; is abundant on the mountains round 

 the valley of Cashmere, and, eastward, on the ranges 

 near the stations of Dugshai and Simla, also on the 

 lesser Himalayan ranges." Hume says (" Nests and 

 Eggs of Indian Birds," Vol. I., pp. 4, 718) :' March 

 to May is, I consider, the normal breeding season ; in 

 the plains the majority lay in April, rarely later, and 

 in the hills in May ; but, in the plains a few birds lay 

 also in February. 



* The Crow-like Birds in captivity should have a gxiod in- 

 sectivorous soft food as staple diet, to which fruit, nuts, insects, 

 mice, small birds, eg-gvs, small fish, newts, tadpoles or email 

 f rogvs may be added as variety. 



