Courtship 



while his beautiful 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 close over 

 his back, so as to throw the long 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 raises and lowers his head. Then comes 

 the finale, which lasts only 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 inside of his mouth, and 

 sings the same gurgling notes without once closing his 

 bill, and with a slow 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 and song are over. 

 " The king bird has another form of display which he 

 very rarely exhibits, and only on three or four occasions 

 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 expanded. Sud- 

 denly he closes his wings and lets his body fall straight 

 downwards, looking exactly like a crimson pear, his blue 

 legs being stretched out to the 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 the acrobatic display. It 

 has been witnessed on different days to his juggling 



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