RAVENS. 



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least four times as long as those at the sides ; the wings are short and decidedly rounded, the fourth, 

 fifth, and sixth quills being longer than the rest. The appellation of Mouse Birds has been given 

 to this group on account of the mouse-like grey that predominates in their plumage, varied 

 occasionally with a reddish or dark grey shade. 



THE WIRIWA, AND WHITE-CHEEKED MOUSE BIRD. 

 The Wiriwa (Co/ins Senegalensis) and the White-cheeked Mouse Bird {Colitis Icitcotis) are 

 both inhabitants of Africa. In the first the brow is grey, and adorned with a tuft of brownish-grey 

 hair-like feathers ; the back of the head and sides of the neck are reddish yellow, the remaining upper 



THE wiriwa {Colius Senegalensis). 



part of the body blueish grey, the throat light grey, the immediate front of the throat and breast 

 greyish blue, clouded with grey ; the belly is reddish brown, the beak red at its base and black at the 

 tip ; the feet are bright red, as is a bare ring around the brown eye. The plumage of the White- 

 cheeked species is mouse grey ; the lower portion of the body is yellowish grey, the throat dark grey, 

 the brow blackish grey, the cheeks greyish yellow. The webs of the tail-feathers are broader than 

 in those of the Wiriwa. The eye is light blue, the upper mandible of a blueish shade, the lower 

 mandible reddish horn colour, and the feet bright red. Both species are alike in size, being about 

 thirteen or thirteen and a half inches long, and from eleven to eleven and a half broad ; the wing 

 measures three inches and three-quarters, and the tail about nine inches. These remarkable birds are 

 found exclusively in Central and Southern Africa, though the northern parts of that continent seem 

 equally rich in their favourite trees. Some species appear to inhabit a very limited tract, whilst the 

 range of others extends from the western to the eastern coast, and from sixteen degrees south latitude 

 to the Cape of Good Hope : all frequent well wooded districts, and are as numerous in the fertile 

 steppes as in the primitive forests. Le Vaillant was the first to give any detailed account of the 

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