PARADISEIDAE 543 



chestnut under tail-coverts. The bill is crimson, pinkish, or bluish. 

 Sphecotheres is yellow-green or olive-yellow, at times brighter below, 

 and is relieved by black, grey, and white, the orbits being yellowish 

 or flesh-coloured, the bill blackish. 



These shy, restless, and quarrelsome birds frequent gardens, 

 groves, and mangrove swamps, avoiding the ground, flying heavily 

 but swiftly from tree to tree, and hopping among the higher 

 branches. They eat insects and fruit ; and utter flute-like notes, 

 varied by mewing calls or " churrs " of alarm. The nest is a pocket 

 of bark, grass, and fibres, with the rim woven over two forking 

 twigs leaves, moss, and hair being occasionally added. The 

 three to five white or salmon-coloured eggs have dark purplish 

 or brown-pink spots, and more rarely streaks ; those of Oriolus 

 viridis being more dusky with brown and lilac markings. Spheco- 

 theres maxillaris makes a shallow nest of twigs, and lays three 

 olive or green eggs, blotched or zoned with red-brown. 1 



Fam. XXII. Paradiseidae. The Birds of Paradise have no 

 rivals in splendour, unless it be the Humming-birds, among which, 

 however, there is- no such marvellous development of accessory 

 plumes. They are undoubtedly allied to the Corvidae, as is evidenced 

 in particular by Lycoeorax and Manucodia, while these also connect 

 the more typical forms with the comparatively plainly garbed 

 Bower-birds, often placed in a separate Family, Ptilorhynchidae. 

 Few species are as large as Crows, and some are not bigger than 

 Thrushes. Whether known to earlier traders or not, the first 

 undoubted account of Birds of Paradise published in Europe was 

 that of Maximilianus Transylvanus (1523), followed by that of 

 Antonio Pigafetta, both relating to a couple of birds brought 

 by Magellan's company from Batchian, 2 where they were called 

 " Manukdewata," or " Birds of the gods." Natives when preserv- 

 ing the skins used to cut off the wings and the feet, a fact which 

 gave rise to absurd stories of Paradise-birds (Paradeira apoda) 

 never perching, gazing perpetually at the sun (passaros de sol), 

 suspending themselves by the tail-feathers, and so forth. The 

 hen was also said to lay her eggs on the back of her spouse. 



1 For unconscious mimicry of Mimeta (Oriolidae) and Philemon (Meliphagidae), 

 cf. A. Newton, Diet. Birds, 1893, pp. 573-574. 



2 Cf. A. Newton, Diet. Birds, 1893, pp. 37-40 ; and for the Family generally, op. 

 cit. pp. 48-51, 534-536, 779-780, 789-790, Wallace, Malay Archipelago, ch. xxxviii., 

 Salvador!, Ornitologia Papuasia e Molucche, and the Monographs of Elliot and Sharpe. 



