On the Paradise Flycatcher .



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before his wife but lie would do so sometimes in the spring when

I was taking him round with me in the early morning.


On these occasions he always launched himself forth into

the air off my head, and then, after flying a few yards would fluff

himself out until he looked like a snowy powder-puff with a

long-tail, and would gradually sink with extended tail and wings

until within a few feet of the ground when he would rise again

with rapid beats of his wings and then either repeat the same

trick or else fly straight back to me and once more absorb himself

in the business of his life—eating.


For his size he was a very greedy bird, and he never seemed

really satisfied during daylight and he certainly ate four times the

bulk of stuff in a day that his wife did, but he kept wonderfully

well until I left him to go home, and then in my absence he fell

a prey to a tame Civet cat that had, during my presence, always

declared Paradise Flycatchers to be rank poison to it.


The nests of these Flycatchers are very beautiful ; deep

little cups of fine grasses and bents, neatly and compactly inter¬

twisted with one another, and ornamented freely outside with

lichen, moss, caterpillar’s cocoons, and with copious spider’s

webbing. Generally they are placed in a small vertical fork of a

Bamboo or a small branch of a tree, in the case of typica most

often of a Mango tree, but now and then one may be found in a

horizontal fork. Always, however, they are very firmly fixed in

and attached to the supports with the spider webs as well as

incorporated in the materials of the body of the nest.


The full complement of eggs laid is four, hardly ever five,

and almost equally, hardly ever three.


They are extremely beautiful eggs varying in ground

colour from almost pure white, merely tinged with salmon or

pink, to a warm, deep pink or salmon colour. The markings

consist of specks, spots and blotches of red, reddish brown and

reddish grey with a very few secondary spots of lilac or neutral

tint, these being sometimes practically absent. As a rule they

are disposed in an indefinite ring about the larger end, sometimes

as cap and still less often sparsely scattered over the larger two-

thirds of the egg.


As a rule the paler the ground colour the more definite the



