BIRDS. 43 



The two examples in captivity furnished the writer with abundant opportunities 

 of witnessing and portraying this singular mimetic phenomenon. Both of them, after the 

 manner of their species, were excessively timid, and, while they displayed with delightful 

 abandon all their natural habits and idiosyncrasies before members of the household, 

 the near approach of strangers, and more especially of children, was an almost invariable 

 signal for their assuming the above-described erect, stick-like attitude. When this 

 posture was resorted to in association with more natural influences, such as a passing 

 hawk or a cat stealing along the hedgerow, it was always preceded by the utterance 

 of a very characteristic alarm note, entirely different in character from the several 

 vocal variations referred to later on, to which they give expression under normal 

 conditions. This warning note of Podargus may, indeed, be so accurately reproduced 

 by the human voice pronouncing the words " Chup', chup'," shortly and sharply, with 

 distinct intervals, that the writer was able at will to compel the birds to "stand. at 

 attention." When the alarm note was emitted by the birds naturally it was often a 

 difficult task to detect the cause of their anxiety. After eager scannings, a small 

 speck in the empyrean would probably reveal the well-nigh invisible presence of a 

 wedge-tail eagle or may be a flight of wild duck crossing the sky at the same high 

 altitude. A characteristic portrait of one of these birds in its erect, mimetically 

 defensive pose is given in Plate IX., fig. 15. The correspondence of the plumage 

 pattern in this figure with the rough corrugations of the branch it rests on ; the 

 customary closing of the eyes, with the exception only of the narrowest slit-like 

 aperture ; and the analogy of the stiffened plumose feathers that spring from the base 

 of the upper mandible, to a ragged tuft of bark fibre, are all represented here with 

 photographic fidelity. Another example in which both of the birds have assumed the 

 attenuated attitude associated with alarm is supplied by Fig. 17 of Plate IX. In this 

 instance the female bird, to the left, is exhibiting its not uncommonly manifested 

 tendency to shrink into itself, as it were, in such a manner as to occupy the smallest 

 possible amount of space. Notwithstanding the very closely corresponding dimensions 

 of this pair as instanced by Figs. 2, 7, 8, and 10, occasions would sometimes happen in 

 which the one shrinking into itself from alarm and the other standing up and distending 

 its plumage defiantly, might be supposed from their photographs to represent two 

 quite distinctly dimensioned birds. This artificially induced disparity in their respective 

 calibres is very strikingly illustrated in the portrait of them reproduced on page 44. 



Many additional illustrations may be cited by way of demonstrating the 

 very remarkable diversity of aspect and contour that may obtain in one and the same 



