﻿EXTERNAL ANATOMY. CONCEALED CRESTS. 3? 



pleasure; but the principle of their construction is 

 totally different, and is altogether peculiar. These 

 crests are generally either of a bright yellow, red, or 

 golden colour ; sometimes, though very rarely, white.* 

 If the feathers of the crown, which are not conspicu- 

 ously elongated, are laid perfectly smooth, the crest 

 does not appear, although its presence is sometimes 

 indicated by a slight streak of the same colour. When 

 the bird, however, is excited, the central feathers of the 

 crown suddenly expand, radiate almost in a circle, and 

 display what is often a most beautiful and striking 

 ornament. The bright colours of the crest, in fact, are 

 only at the roots of the feather, which are all tipt with 

 the ordinary colour of the plumage ; so that when these 

 are expanded, they are no inapt representation of the 

 opening petals of a marigold or some beautiful little 

 syngenesious flower ; the predominant colour of that 

 class, no less than of the crests which represent them, 

 being different shades of yellow. Now, it is a circum- 

 stance no less singular than remarkable, in conjunction 

 with what we shall presently state, that of between fifty 

 and sixty birds possessing this sort of crest, every one 

 is purely insectivorous, that is, living entirely upon 

 insects, which are caught, not by hunting, but are 

 seized only on their near approach. We have fre- 

 quently had occasion to advert to the fact, that all the 

 tyrant flycatchers of Brazil never pursue their prey, or 

 go out in search of it, by wandering about from tree 

 to tree like other birds. They take their station on a 

 particular branch, and there patiently wait, like a spider 

 on its web, for such insects as come within range of 

 a sudden dart. It is to this family of birds that the 

 crests we have been describing are almost entirely re 

 stricted. We have frequently seen the Bentevi of Brazil 

 (Saurophagus sulphuratus Sw., fig. 16.) — the most fa- 

 miliar, as well as common species, in that country — 



* As in two or three of the American tyrant flycatchers, and in the sub- 

 genus Dumicola Sw. North. Zool. ii. p. 439. 



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