1895.] Birds of New Guinea. 9 
The fruits of the teak-wood, the pandanus, etc., constitute 
perhaps the larger portion of the food of these birds, but their 
grosser appetite does not disdain an insect diet---beetles, certain 
kinds of bugs and locusts, not forgetting frogs, lizards and 
other small reptiles with which the New Guinea forests are 
well stocked. If one would prefer that these ethereal creatures 
lived upon things less obnoxious to our tastes, he may console 
himself with the knowledge that they occasionally partake of 
butterflies, which in these wilds are, in many cases, almost as 
lovely and aerial asthe birds themselves. It is doubtful, how- 
ever, if these are taken on the wing as some have fancied ; the 
expanding plumage would seem to forbid any such attempt on 
the part of the pursuer even though the prey be only a slow- 
sailing Lepidopter. Seleucides alba is said to sip the nectar from 
flowers. 
Of the nests, eggs and young but little is yet known 
although it would seem as if opportunities for such knowledge, 
had not been altogether lacking. 
“ What character, 
O sovereign Nature! I appeal to thee, 
Of all thy feathered progeny 
Is so unearthly, and what shape so fair? 
So richly decked in variegated down, 
Green, sable, shining yellow, shadowy brown, 
Tints softly with each other blended, 
Hues doubtfully begun and ended ; 
Or intershooting, and to sight 
Lost and recovered, as the rays of light 
Glance on the conscious plumes touched here and there” 
Bird of Paradise. 
.— Wordsworth. 
A colored plate of the Drepanornis albertisii will appear in the next 
mumber of the Naturalist. 
