6 The American Naturalist. [January,. 
ing each other at their extremities, the lateral feathers decreas- 
ing gradually in length towards the rump. These glow with 
colour of a brilliancy almost equalling that reflected from the 
shining throat and breast. Altogether this Plume bird is a 
splendid representative of its race, not only in respect to its 
exquisite shape and coloring, but also great size, for it can 
boast of a total length of nearly four feet. When the mantle 
is uplifted, there is plainly discernible a lovely wavering cres- 
cent of blue light about an inch from the edges and reaching 
as far as the body. Mr. Wallace describes these broad side- 
plumes as dilated at their extremities; rather do they seem as 
if a pair of shears had clipped them before they had become 
fringed. Nor can it be said that the bar of quivering color ex- 
tends along the tips; this must be removed as has been stated, 
a little space below, where, if so chameleon-like a tint can be 
labelled, it is a glowing azure. 
When Mr. John Gould, the author of Birds of Australia and 
other monumental works, was at work in the Island-continent, 
he limited the range of the Rifle Birds to one small section of 
that country. Recent travellers, however, in New Guinea have 
found members of this interesting group there also. Mr. Octav- 
ius Stone who spent “a Few Months in New Guinea” collected 
the Ptilorhis magnifica along the southern coast, and Mr. 8S. F. 
Denton gives an engaging description of his pursuit and 
capture of the same. This bird is not enriched with the feath- 
ered efflorescence, if we may so term it, to the same extent as 
the Plume-birds to which it is allied, and the birds of paradise, 
but the sheen of its scale-plumage is of even greater intensity. 
Colours flash from head and throat with gem-like rapidity and 
effulgence, for these parts are covered, as it were, with bits of 
glittering steel that are emerald-green to look upon when the 
bird is perfectly still, but when a movement is made there is a 
sudden blaze of yellow mingled with the primal tints. 
The rest of the body is of a velvety black “ touched here and 
there with purple gleams of light.” Mr. Denton calls it “one 
of the loveliest and richest creatures ” in the world. Its note ~ 
he says, is a loud and coarse croak and when it flies “every _ 
stroke of its wings squeak as if two pieces of crisp silk had been 
