230 
Birds of Celebes: Caculidae. 
This gliding motion through the crowns of the trees is compared by Platen to 
the spectacle afforded at sea by a wandering troop of porpoises: “it is not flying 
nor hopping, but rather a rhythmical diving and disappearing in and out of the 
green, and it is impossible to form any approximate notion of the number of 
individuals” (Gefied. Welt 1887, 218). It will readily be imagined how this 
gliding mode of travelling is due to the parachute-like action of the great tail; 
the superior facility for setthng afforded by this organ to the common 
Magpie (Pica caudata) is obvious^). 
From their structure, therefore, these birds appear less capable than usual 
of sustained flight, and from observations on their habits it is found that they 
do not make use of their wings for this purpose; consequently there seems to 
be so much the less reason to suppose that their distribution took place by 
flight across the straits which separate their habitats. 
As Shelley shows, the sexes of all the Phoenicophaeinae are similar in co- 
loration, except, perhaps, in Rhinortha. P. calorhynchus follows the rule, and 
the young, as is often the case in genera in which the male and female are 
alike, assumes the adult plumage at a very early age. Young birds, according 
to Briiggemann, who alone seems to have received specimens, have the tail- 
feathers narrower and longer than in the adult, and the head rusty instead of 
grey. In this — the form of the tail-feathers — and in having a line of 
yellow along the ridge of the under bill they call to mind Rhinococcyx of Java. 
Facts concerning the food of the Celebesian form are scanty; Meyer found 
that it feeds on insects; probably, however, its food — as its bill suggests — 
consists of fruits as well; Legge has found such to compose the chief diet of 
Phoenicophaes and Zanclostomus in Ceylon, through insects were discovered in 
the stomach as well, and Davison remarks that Rhinortha chlorophaea feeds 
“apparently entirely on insects”, and a similar fare with the addition of small rep- 
tiles is ascribed by Oates to Rhopodytes tristis (Oates, B. Brit. Burmah II, 121,122). 
SUBFAMILY SCYTHROPINAE. 
This subfamily of the Cuckoos contains but a single species, Scythrops 
novaehollandiae, one of the largest Cuckoos, with a body as big as that of a 
Crow and a much larger bill and tail. Its plumage is Cuculine — brown upper 
surface, grey head, neck, and breast, and faintly barred under parts; it differs 
by its enormous bill, which is furnished on the basal half with a 
shallow groove by the side of the culmen and a second groove lower 
and that all the inhabitants became frightened as to what might happen”! A distmctive fire which took place 
in the village next day was associated by the natives with this unusual behaviour of the “Foreteller-bird of 
the daytime”. 
1) De Bocarme says that Rhinococcyx in Java is in the habit of sitting couched upon foliage supported 
by its tail and half open wings, but not grasping any bough with its feet (Schlegel, Cuculi 49). 
