24



mounted as a hand screen. At length he would have to let go

his breath, which would suddenly escape with a violent gasp.

This process, on the top of his dead tree, and surrounded hy as

many female admirers as he could gather around him, would be

repeated interminably if not interrupted ; and when the sun was

shining the colours were very brilliant, not gaudy but chaste.

Another point in his favour was that he was very quiet, not

noisy, in the aviary.


By the Zoological Society he is called a Black Hangnest,

but I think the title of Cassique is better.


And this brings us to a very interesting point, concerning

which it is necessary to say a few words.


The sub-family of the Cassiques ( CassicincE ) is characterized

(by the naked and exposed nostrils and) by the expansion of the

base of the upper mandible into a frontal shield. In some of the

genera, of which there are about nine, this frontal shield is

much expanded and elevated at the base, in others onty slightly

expanded and elevated. In addition to this, there is sometimes

a backward prolongation of the hinder extremity of the lower

mandible. In some cases, the expansions, elevations, and back¬

ward prolongations are very remarkable ; nevertheless, not in

any work to which I have access, is the faintest reference made

to or hint given of the probable uses in the economy of the

CassicincE of these exceptional and almost unique developments.

In some instances, too, the bills are unusually conical. Some

are comparatively short and stout, others longer and curiously

slim towards the tip, all the species probably taking their food

generally in a similar manner, each differing perhaps in detail.


In the Black Cassique these developments are very mode¬

rate ; but for all that I think Mephistopheles betrayed the family

secret while with me, if secret it be, for realty it is only a develop¬

ment of some of the actions of the familiar Brazilian Hangnest.

For nearly two months he was under close observation in a six-foot

cage in my dining-room, inside of which, running lengthwise as

a perch from end to end, there was a fine stick of timber, which

had once flourished in my aviary, and which may be regarded

for the present purpose as a horizontal bough in his native

Amazonian forests. Travellers tell us that in the forests of

Central America, Brazil, etc., there are any number of dead and

dying boughs, and living ones too, which are covered with

growths of many kinds, and of necessity rotten bark abounds ;

and these forests are the home of the Cassiques—and of count-



