The Ptiloris paradisea “ appears to be strictly confined to eastern Australia ; at all events I have not heard, 
during a sojourn of fourteen years, of its having been shot or seen to the westward of the dividing ranges 
which run parallel to the coast at a distance of from 90 to 130 miles ; its range southward does not extend 
farther than Port Stephens ; one or two have been shot as far north as Wide Bay, but its principal strong- 
hold is the large cedar brushes which skirt the mountains and creeks of the Manning, Hastings, MacLeay, 
Bellinger, Clarence, and Richmond rivers, where during the breeding months of November and December 
the male bird is easily found; at that season of the year, as soon as the sun illumines the tops of the trees, 
up rises the Rifle Bird from the thickets below to the top of some lofty pine, such as the Araucaria Mac- 
Leayana which there abounds, always, however, selecting a spot where three or four of these trees occur at 
about two hundred feet apart ; the morning is then spent in short flights from tree to tree, in sunning him- 
self and cleaning his feathers, and in uttering during his short flights a cry resembling the word yass, by 
which name the bird is known to the natives of the Richmond river ; besides this cry it also emits during 
flight a most singular noise, produced by the action of the wings, more nearly resembling that which would 
be produced by shaking a lot of new stiff 1 silk than anything else with which I can compare it. As its short 
and peculiarly truncate wings would indicate, its powers of flight are very limited, and appear to be seldom 
employed for any other purpose than to transport the bird from tree to tree.” 
The male has the general plumage deep velvety black, slightly tinged with purple ; wings dull purplish 
black, glossed with a greenish hue on the margins of the feathers ; feathers of the head small, scale-like, 
and of a shining metallic bronzy green ; feathers of the throat similar in form, and of a shining metallic oil- 
green, bounded below by a crescent of velvety black, to which succeeds a narrower crescent of shining 
yellowish green ; under surface purplish black, the flank-feathers prolonged into a filamentous form and 
reaching beyond tbe extremity of the tail ; two central tail-feathers shining metallic green, the remainder 
deep black ; irides umber-brown ; feet lead-colour, the soles ochraceous. 
The female has all the upper surface brown ; wings reddish brown, margined with bright rufous ; tail 
rufous ; over each eye a superciliary stripe of buffy white ; throat buffy white ; from the lower angle of the 
bill on each side a narrow streak of brown ; breast and under surface buffy, crossed with numerous irregular 
bars of dark brown. 
The Plate represents two males and a female of the natural size. 
