4 The American Naturalist. [January, 
long, curving bill continued from a small somewhat flattened 
head, suggest habits akin to the sun or honey birds, and even 
relationship to them. The above is also called Epimachus 
vethii, vide p. 393, Vol. 28, no. 329 of Amer. Nat. 
Mr. Denton, whose keenness of observation is evident in his 
interesting volume of personal experience as it is also in his 
recollection, and whose ready assistance one takes pleasure in 
acknowledging, likens the head of Drepanornis when the feath- 
ers are puffed out to that of the crested grebe. He regards it 
as one of the oddest, strangest and most grotesque-looking of 
birds. 
Whether the so-called Plume birds form a distinct family as 
some naturalists have divided them or whether they should be 
ranked among the birds of paradise as merely a long billed 
variation—a species to which the Drepanornis should properly 
belong, certain it is that there is nothing lovelierin feathers to 
entitle their possessors to a classification with the peerless 
Paradisea. This much asto their appearance ; as to their diet, 
they are both insectivorous and frugivorous feeding largely 
upon the fruit of the pandanus tree. The legs and feet are 
almost misshapen, naked along the thighs and livid in colour. 
The cry is long and cadenced. In essaying a description of 
these birds it is well to keep in mind the words Mr. Wood 
used in his own account. In speaking of the inadequacy of 
language to convey the impression the changing beauty of the - 
plumage leaves. upon the mind, he adds: “even with the 
assistance of colour, any idea that can be given, would neces- 
sarily be very imperfect, and the most admirable illustrations 
ever drawn, rich in ultramarine, carmine, and gold, would 
‘pale their ineffectual fires’ even before the stiff and distorted 
form of the stuffed bird. The very respiration keeps the 
feathers in continued motion, causing them to change their 
tints with every breath, ete. This is in itself a description. 
In additional respects the species under consideration—tħe 
twelve-wired Epimachus, Seleucides alba of D’Albertis, is en- _ 
shrouded in soft, loose plumage, like velvet to look upon and- 
of the richest tone. Itis a beautiful puzzle in arrangement ~ 
and coloring, a poem in feathers, a symphony in the interfu- 
