﻿EXTERNAL ANATOMY CRESTS. 33 



it has again perched. During spring, indeed, when 

 in company with the other sex, the male always carries 

 it erect, although, when the bird is killed, it seems to 

 disappear : many of the tyrant flycatchers of America 

 exhibit, in the same manner, what may be called the ru- 

 diments of a simply pointed crest, which is the first and 

 most simple of all those that are moveable : examples 

 of this form are very numerous, and exhibit a progres- 

 sive development of the feathers, the longest of which 

 are either placed on the vertex or highest part of 

 the crown of the head, or immediately behind, towards 

 the nape. These feathers are always more or less 

 pointed, and rise gradually, one above the other, some- 

 what in the shape of a cone. The two extremes of 

 this structure may be seen, among our native birds, in 

 the common Muscicapa grisola and the lapwing plover. 

 Some of the most beautiful examples, in foreign or- 

 nithology, of this sort of crest, developed to its utmost 

 extent, will be found among the cockatoos, in the 

 splendid Trochilus Lalandii, the crested boat-bill, and the 

 Agami heron, wherein the two or three longest feathers 

 very much exceed the others, and assume, towards their 

 ends, a gentle and graceful curve upwards. Sometimes, 

 however, as in the latter bird, the European chatterer 

 (Bombycilla), and the African coly (Colius), the ends 

 are pendant : but this is most conspicuous in the genus 

 Dendronessa, or summer ducks.* 



(42.) Radiated, or fan-shaped crests are not so 

 frequent as the last, but they are much more beautiful. 

 The first or incipient development of this form is seen 

 in those elegant longtailed flycatchers, belonging to 

 the subgenus Muscipeta Cuv., where the top of the 

 head is somewhat flattened, and the feathers unusually 

 broad and round : those in front are not perceptibly 

 lengthened, but they are slightly so towards the decli- 

 vity of the crown ; so that when the feathers are a little 

 elevated, they assume the form of a flat, semicircular little 



* Dendronessa sponsa — galericulata Sw. North. Zool. ii. p. 497. 

 D 



