XX] LONDON: VOYAGE TO SINGAPORE 31s 



thick as a goose- quill, and about an inch and a half long. 

 They are large and overlap each other, with margins of a 

 fine metallic blue. The whole skin of the neck is very loose 

 and extensible, and when the crest is expanded the neck is 

 inflated, and the cylindrical neck-ornament hangs down in 

 front of it. The effect of these two strange appendages when 

 the bird is at rest and the head turned backwards must be 

 to form an irregular ovate black mass with neither legs, beak, 

 nor eyes visible, so as to be quite unlike any living thing. It 

 may thus be a protection against arboreal carnivora, owls, etc. 

 It is, undoubtedly, one of the most extraordinary of birds, 

 and is an extreme form of the great family of Chatterers, which 

 are peculiar to tropical America. Strange to say, it is rather 

 nearly allied to the curious white bell-bird, so different in 

 colour, but also possessing a fleshy erectile appendage from 

 the base of the upper mandible. The umbrella bird inhabits 

 the lofty forests of the islands of the lower Rio Negro, and 

 some portions of the flooded forests of the Upper Amazon. 



About the time when I was collecting these birds (January, 

 1850) a new species (Cephaloptertis glabricollis) was brought 

 home by M. Warzewickz from Central America, where a single 

 specimen was obtained on the mountains of Chirique at an 

 elevation of eight thousand feet. This is a similar bird, and 

 has a crest of the same form but somewhat less developed ; 

 but the main distinction is that a large patch on the neck is 

 of bare red skin, from the lower part of which hangs the 

 fleshy tube, also red and bare, with only a few feathers, 

 forming a small tuft at its extremity. This species is figured 

 in the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1850 " (p. 92), 

 and will serve to explain my description of the larger species 

 in the same volume (p. 206). Nine years later a third species 

 was discovered in the eastern Andes of Ecuador, which more 

 resembles the original species, but has the feathered dewlap 

 so greatly developed as to be nearly as long as the whole 

 bird. This is figured in The Ibis (1859, PI. III). The white 

 species which I was told inhabited the Uaupes river has not 

 been found, and may probably have been confounded by my 

 informants with the white bell-bird. 



