of Ceram and Waigiou. 
289 
to the end. Luckily, however, the plumage of these birds is so 
firmly set that they are washed and cleaned more easily than any 
others, and thus a few hours’ extra work was all their obstinacy 
cost me. 
Having these beautiful birds brought to me alive, I, of course, 
made many attempts to preserve them. With my own hands 
I constructed a large cage in which they could move about 
freely, and tried every kind of food I could procure. The proper 
fruits were, however, scattered widely over the forest on lofty 
trees, and could not be obtained enough ripened with sufficient 
regularity. Rice and grasshoppers they soon came to eat pretty 
eagerly, and I was then in hopes of success; but on the second 
or third day they were invariably attacked by a kind of convul¬ 
sions, fell off their perch, and soon died. I tried altogether 
seven or eight individuals, apparently in perfect health, and in 
every case with the same result. Some were full-plumaged, 
others without lateral plumes; but I could not obtain any very 
young birds, with which the attempt might probably have suc¬ 
ceeded better. 
The live birds were principally remarkable for their excessive 
activity and liveliness. They were in constant motion; and the 
brilliantly contrasted colours of the head and neck, with the 
erected crests and swelling throat, formed a most beautiful pic¬ 
ture. I never saw the red lateral plumes fully expanded, and 
can therefore form no judgment as to their beauty. They were 
generally carried under the wing, rising a little over the back, 
with the white curved tips drooping over the end of the tail. 
The long flattened tail-cirrhi hang down in a graceful, spiral 
curve, which is produced by the general curved form of these 
feathers (which lay naturally in a complete circle reaching round 
to the head of the bird) combined with the semicylindrical 
sectional figure. These plumes pass through a variety of sin¬ 
gular forms before they become fully developed. First they 
appear as simple cirrhi, like those of P. apoda and P.papuana : 
these have often a spatulate tip, as in Momotus and Tanysiptera. 
The rachis then becomes flattened out and slightly curved, 
and finally black, curved cylindrically, and entirely destitute of 
barb. In one singular example I possess, a single cirrhus has 
