228 Display of the King Bird-of-Paradise. 
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 beautiful fan-like side-plumes, which he opens and 
closes, in time with the variations of lis 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 ” (text-fig. 9, p. 227). 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 for a 
few seconds. He suddenly turns right round and shews 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 shewing distinctly the 
extraordinary light apple-green colour of the gullet, 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 [ 
seen him go through this performance. Dropping under the 
perch the bird walks backwards and forwards in. an inverted 
position with his wings expanded. 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 the 
