262



On the Paradise Flycatcher.



This, of course is very annoying for those who believe that the

differences in the plumage of the sexes of some species are due

to sexual selection. If it is the preference of the hen for white

birds that has caused the cock Paradise Flycatcher to become

white, how is it that the old-fashioned chestnut gentlemen are

able to secure wives quite early in the breeding season?


But this is not by any means the only way in which

Fapsiphone sets at nought the theories of orthodox biologists.

It seems to do everything which a bird ought not to do. The

liens mock Darwin by sometimes fighting over a cock. I myself

have seen them do this. The snowy white cock derides the

theory of Wallace by sitting on the open nest. When so occupied

Iris two long tail-feathers hang down several inches below the

bottom of the nest. Anglo-Indian schoolboys when out after the

eggs of this species keep a sharp look-out for the sitting cock,

who reveals from afar the presence of the nest. This latter is

usually attached to one of the lowest branches of a tree, no care

whatever being taken to conceal its whereabouts. It is usually

built in a fork near the extremity of a slender branch, for it, even

when it contains the brood of four, is nearly as light as the

proverbial feather. It takes the form of an inverted cone, the

downwardly directed point of which is usually prolonged into a

kind of stem. The chief materials used are fine dried grass

stems and fibres, kept together by cobweb—the most approved

cement of bird masons. Exteriorly the nursery is well plastered

over with spider’s web and on to this a number of tiny white

cocoons are sometime stuck.


Both the cock and the lieu work at the nest. Both seek

materials, the cock going off in one direction to secure them and

the hen in another. Sometimes one of the pair returns with

material in the beak while the other is sitting in the nest working

fibre into it or moulding it into shape. O11 such occasions the

last to arrive squats patiently 011 the edge of the nest or beside it

until its mate has finished. The cock gets through more work

than the hen, and when the eggs are laid he does a considerable

part of the incubating in the day time.


I find from my notes that I visited the nest in question in

my compound sixteen times between the laying of the eggs and



