﻿34f ON THE CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS. 



crest, which can barely be discerned in the preserved skin. 

 Very many of those humming birds, whose crown is 

 particularly brilliant, have this slight indication of a 

 fan-shaped crest, particularly the ruby-topaz*; and it 

 may even be detected in the violet-eared species, t 

 When fully developed, the feathers are so disposed that 

 they radiate from the hinder part of the head, and 

 assume the appearance of a fan, the last series being 

 considerably lengthened : the feathers are thus spread 

 out horizontally, and not, as in the last, perpendicularly; 

 and they are always broad and rounded, instead of nar- 

 row and pointed. The Harpyia destructor %, or destroy- 

 ing eagle of Brazil, the Bacha of Le Vaillant § (another 

 eagle of Africa), and the secretary vulture of the Cape, 

 all possess the sort of crest we are now describing; but 

 in no bird is it so fully or so beautifully developed as 

 in the royal tody of Brazil || (fig. 13.), the size of the 

 crest being really enormous 

 in proportion to that of the 

 bird, and assuming an ap- 

 pearance, when fully ex- 

 panded, very analogous to 

 that of the tail of the pea- 

 cock. Sometimes, although 

 the feathers are scarcely 

 longer than the others, they 

 are of a different colour, so 

 as to produce a conspicuous 

 semicircular band : in the 

 six-shafted Paradise bird this band has a striking effect, 

 from the splendid metallic gloss of the feathers com- 

 posing it; while in the My nigra ccerulea, or azure fly- 

 catcher of IndialT, it resembles a crescent of black velvet. 

 (43.) Of lanceolate or pedunculated crests, there are 



* Trochilus moschitus, Braz. Birds, vol. i. pi. 50. 



f Trochilus auritus, ibid. pi. 29. 



t Represented in the vignette to this volume. 



% Ois. d'Af'vique, vol. i. pi. 15. 



|| Mcgalophus regius, Braz. Birds, vol. ii. pi. 51, 52. 



H Le VaiU. Ois. d' Afrique, pL 153. 



i 



