250 



ORNITHOLOGY. 



graduated; legs and toes strong, with very distinct scales; claws 

 strong. Feathers of the head and neck with their shafts stiff, almost 

 spinous on the former, and with the filaments of their webs few and 

 separated from each other, presenting an open or skeleton-like cha- 

 racter. 



Dimensions. — Total length (of skin), seventeen inches; wing, six 

 and a half inches ; tail, nine and a half inches. 



Colors. — Forehead and space inclosing the eyes, black. Other 

 parts of the head, the throat, neck, and breast, pale ochre-yellow, 

 nearly white on the throat and breast. Wing-coverts and quills bright 

 chestnut. Back, rump, abdomen, tibiae, and tail, black, with a green 

 metallic lustre on the back and abdomen, and purple and blue on the 

 tail. Bill dark ; tarsi lighter. "Irides crimson" (Feale). 



Hab. — Mindanao, Philippine Islands. Specimen in Nat. Mus. 

 Washington. 



A single specimen of this handsome bird was obtained near La 

 Caldera, in the Island of Mindanao, and appears to be in plumage 

 entirely adult. The feathers of the head and neck are remarkably 

 rigid, and at the points of some of them almost aculeate or spinous. 

 They are also unusually open or loose in their texture, the filaments 

 of the webs being few and detached from each other. 



This species is apparently related to Ceniropus ateralhus, Lesson, 

 Voy. Coquille, Birds, Plate XXXIII, but in that bird all the parts are 

 represented as pure white which in the present are dull yellow. The 

 figure in our plate is about two-thirds of the size of life. Nothing re- 

 lating to the habits of this species is recorded by the naturalists of the 

 Expedition. 



