<-S "- I 3 LOF-CALIFO 1 | * * r £ %J\ *om\ ojHIBRARYQ^ ^ S «= Jj I1 ^1 « S °c ? s a g I I 5 =? .^lUVAN^tl ^) ^^" ^C***y "" O A^ ^T^™ I Iffi § s>° "%BAINM ^lOS-ANCEl 'S S/ g 10 I S OT b-2 ^•LIBRAR1 WONDERS OF THE BIRD WORLD WONDERS OF THE BIRD WORLD BY R. BOWDLER SHARPE, LL.D., F.L.S., ETC. I.ATE ASSISTANT-KEEPER, SUB-DEPARTMENT OF VERTEBRATA, BRITISH MUSEUM With Illustrations by A. T. Ehves NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY 443-449 FOURTH AVENUE Printed in Great Britain TO THE MANY THOUSANDS OF MY COUNTRYMEN AND COUNTRYWOMEN WHO HAVE HONOURED MY LECTURES WITH THEIR PRESENCE, IN MEMORY OF THE MANY HAPPY HOURS SPENT IN THEIR COMPANY. 365082 THIS little book contains the gist of my lectures on the ' Curiosities of Bird Life/ and kindred ornithological subjects, as delivered by me in many parts of the United Kingdom during the last ten years. I have often been asked to publish my lectures, and had even commenced a series of articles in * Good Words' in 1895, under the title of my best-known lecture, ' Curiosities of Bird Life.' Since that date, however, this title has been used for another volume ; but I trust that even under the new name which I have adopted for this work, many of my friends will recognize the lectures which it was the delight of my heart to give. Acting under medical advice, I may no longer undertake the strain of speaking in public, and I have, therefore, acceded to the request to publish the substance of the lectures which I was in the habit of delivering extempore. I have thus been able to give x Preface the authority for the statements which I made in public, and I have tried to amplify the lectures, which of necessity were more or less sketchy, by giving quotations from the writings of those authors, whose experiences formed the basis of my popular discourses. I trust that there are many of my friends who will like to have a memento of the evenings which were always a source of great pleasure to me at the time, and I hope that, the lectures, now for the first time issued in book form, will not be found to have lost their interest. R. BOWDLER SHARPE. Oct. 12, 1898. CONTENTS CHAPTER I WONDERFUL BIRDS PAGE The Migration of a Gold-crest — Extinct Forms — The Archaeop- teryx— The Phororachus — The Secretary Bird — The Seriama — Ratite or Struthious Birds — Kiwis— Rheas— The Hoatzin . i CHAPTER II WONDERFUL BIRDS (continued} The Megapodes or Mound-builders— The Whale-headed Stork— The Dodo and its kindred — Darters — Frigate Birds — Steamer- Ducks—Penguins . . - , ... . . . .24 CHAPTER III DECORATION IN BIRDS The difference in the colouring of the sexes — Evolution of Species — Sun-birds — Birds of Paradise — Lyre-birds — Motmots — Puffins— The methods by which Birds acquire their plumage 62 CHAPTER IV DECORATION IN BIRDS (continued} Humming-birds — Difference in plumage between male and female — The Racket-tailed Humming-bird — Bell-bird — Umbrella- bird— Great Crested Grebe — Standard-winged Nightjar — Huia 90 xii Contents CHAPTER v THE PLAYING-GROUNDS OF BIRDS PAGE The meeting-places of the Birds of Paradise — The drawing-room of the Argus Pheasant— The assemblies of the Cocks of the Rock — Bower-builders — Gardeners 117 CHAPTER VI THE NESTING OF BIRDS The Orders and Families of Birds, with their mode of nesting — General remarks thereon — Guillemots and their eggs . .146 CHAPTER VII WONDERFUL NESTS Birds which make no nest — The breeding of the Hornbills — Hoopoes — Wood-Hoopoes and Cobras — Kingfishers — Mud- nest builders'— Hoatzins— Flamingoes— Swallows and Martins —Oven-bird— Cemented nests— Edible Swiftlets— Crested Swifts 168 CHAPTER VIII WONDERFUL NESTS (continued} Stick-nest Builders— Hammer-heads — Fire -wood Gatherers — Moss-nest Builders — Felt-nest Builders — Penduline Tits — Rock Warblers — Purse-nest Builders — Weaver-birds — Grass- Warblers — Humming-birds as Engineers — Sun-birds — Salvin's Swift— Assemblages of Albatrosses and Terns . 207 CHAPTER IX THE COURTSHIP AND DANCING OF BIRDS Superiority of the Female — Hemipodes — Painted Snipes — Phala- ropes — Dancing of the Black Grouse — The " Spel " of the Capercailie— The " showing-off " of the Great Bustard — The Bustard's pouch— The Ruffs display— The Crane's per- formance— The Rook in love — The dance of the Jacana — The " Bailador" in "song and dance" 229 Contents xiii CHAPTER x MIMICRY AND PROTECTIVE RESEMBLANCE IN COLOUR OF BIRDS Mimicry in insects — Curassow and Caracara— Drongo and Black Cuckoo — Orioles and Helmeted Honey-eaters — Owl-Parrot — Thick-knees— Pennant-winged Nightjar — Argentine Little Bittern— Ptarmigan and Willow-Grouse . . . .261 CHAPTER XI PARASITIC BIRDS The Koel and the Myna — The Common Cuckoo — Its Migration and winter home — The similarity of its eggs to those of the foster-parent — The ejection of the young of the latter — The Cow-birds parasitic on each other — The nesting of the Ani or Savana Cuckoo of Jamaica . . . . . 295 CHAPTER XII THE MIGRATION OF BIRDS Scanty knowledge of the subject — Summary of observations by Mr. W. Eagle Clarke — Gatke's observations in Heligoland — Migration in the Mississippi Valley — Migration in the North Sea — Mr. Abel Chapman's remarks on the flight of birds ........... 323 CHAPTER XIII GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION The Collecting of Specimens— The six Zoo-geographical Regions of the World — Regions and Sub-Regions — Provinces and Sub-Provinces — Sclater's Scheme — Wallace's Amendments — Allen's Scheme— Dr. H. O. Forbes and the Lost Continent . 348 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE The Dance of the Cock-of-the- Rock . . . Frontispiece The Gold-crest I Restoration of the Archceopteryx 4 Head of the Archceopteryx 4 Restoration of the Tooth-billed Diver 5 Suggested restoration of Phororachus inflatus, Amegh . . 7 The Secretary-Bird 9 The Seriama . 1 1 The Kiwi 15 The Common Rhea, with the male bird in charge of the nestlings 17 Embryo of Hoatzin 20 The Hoatzin ... 21 Nestling of Hoatzin 23 The Frigate Bird 24 The Brush Turkey 27 Section through the mound of Lipoa ocellata in undisturbed state 34 Mound of Lipoa ocellata ........ 35 A bird's-eye view of the mound of Lipoa as seen from above . 36 Nestling Megapode 37 The Whale-headed Stork 41 The Dodo 45 The African Darter 51 Rookery of King-Penguins ........ 57 The Splendid Sun-bird 62 Head of the male of Cinnyris hartlanbi 66 Head of the male of C. cyanolcemus 67 Head of the male of C. reichenbachi 67 Head of C. obscurus, male and female 68 The Blue Bird of Paradise 71 List of Illustrations xv PAGE King of Saxony's Bird of Paradise 73 The Lyre-bird .......... 75 A Motmot at work ......... 79 Ornaments of the Puffin's bill . . . . . . .81 The Poise of a Humming-bird ....... 90 The Racket-tailed Humming-bird . . . . . .92 Young Males of the Loddigesia at play ..... 95 The Ecuadorian Umbrella-bird 101 The Great Crested Grebe ........ 105 The Standard- winged Nightjar . . . . . . .109 The Huia . . . . . . . . . . 113 Ornamental markings in the nestling of the Gouldian Weaver- Finch 116 The Satin Bower-bird 117 An Intruder ! . . 123 Nest of the Queensland Cat-bird 127 The Bower of the Satin Bower-bird . . . . . .130 Double-arched Bower of the Spotted Bower-bird . . .132 The Regent-bird . . . . . . . . . 133 Arbour of the Gardener Bower-bird 137 Arbour of the Gardener Bower-bird (Section) . . . . 143 Arbour of the Gardener Bower-bird (Ground Plan) . . .144 The Cuckoo as a parasite . . . . . . . .146 Nest of the Tailor-bird 161 Nest of a Crested Swift 168 An Enemy ! 170 " I bring you fine thing this morning, sah. Rarity from Denkera" 172 A Baby Hornbill . . . . . . . . . 173 Storming the stronghold of the Hornbill . . . . . 175 Dyak Basket "* . . . . 176 Hardwicke's Paradoxure 177 The death of the Wood-Hoopoes 179 Nest of Tanysiptera sylvia . . . . . . . -183 The Guacharo, or Oil-bird . . . . . . . .187 Nest of the Guacharo ......... 190 Nest of the Flamingo ......... 193 Nests of the Indian Fairy-Martin 198 Nests of the Edible Swiftlets 200 Oven-bird and its nest ......... 201 The Tree-Swift 203 xvi List of Illustrations Weaver-birds' Nests in Liberia ....... 207 Nest of the Fire-wood Gatherer ...... . 209 Nest of the Yellow-throated Warbler ...... 213 Nest of a Penduline Tit ....... . 214 Nest of the Cape Penduline Tit, or Cotton-bird . . . -215 Nest of the Rock- Warbler ........ 216 Nest of the Fan-tailed Warbler ....... 220 Nests of Stellula calliope ........ 222 Loaded nest of Oreotrochilus pichincha ..... 223 The Courting of the male Red-necked Phalarope by the female . 229 Indian Hemipodes ......... 231 Female of the Painted Snipe ....... 235 The Male Blackcock dancing ....... 242 The Male of the Great Bustard showing off ..... 245 The Courting of the Ruff ........ 249 Bailadors at play .......... 259 Female of Papilio merope ...... . .261 Female of Amauris niavius . ..... , ,261 The Black Cuckoo near the nest of the Drongo .... 268 The Black Drongo ......... 269 The Owl-Parrot .......... 271 The Stone-Plover, or Thick-knee ....... 273 The Pennant-winged Nightjar ....... 276 The Argentine Little Bittern ....... 279 The Hoopoe . ..... 281 Little Bittern in reed-bed ........ 283 Ptarmigan in summer plumage ...... 285 Ptarmigan in autumn plumage . , . . . . . 289 Ptarmigan in winter plumage ..... 293 The Ani of Jamaica ......... 295 Young Koel fed by Mynas ........ 299 Young Cuckoo ejecting the nestlings of the Meadow-Pipit . . 307 The Lighthouse on Heligoland . . 323 The Common Nightjar ........ 333 Zoo-geographical Regions of the Globe ..... 348 The Giant Gallinule of New Zealand ...... 371 Wonders of the Bird World CHAPTER I WONDERFUL BIRDS The Gold-crest (Regulus regulus). The Migration of a Gold-crest — Extinct Forms— The Archaeopteryx — The Phororachus— The Secretary Bird— The Seriama— Ratite or Struthious Birds — Kiwis — Rheas — The Hoatzin. I HAVE frequently been asked, "Which do you consider the most wonderful bird in the world ? " It is a difficult question to answer, and I always shirk the reply, for in my opinion every bird is wonderful, and the more we study their habits, and try to understand their inmost lives, their thoughts, their instincts, the more wonderful do birds appear. I well remember a gentleman calling on me at the Natural History Museum in October 1897, bringing with him a small bird in a cage. It was a little Gold-crest (Regulus regulus), which had flown into the topmost car of 2 Wonders of the Bird World the Gigantic Wheel at the Earl's Court Exhibition on the preceding night, about 10 p.m. I had never studied a Gold-crest alive at such close quarters before, and I thought I had never seen such a wonderful little creature in my life. As it hopped backwards and forwards in its cage, it carried its brilliant orange crest in a manner not depicted in any drawing of the species with which I am acquainted, and, instead of displaying the crest as an ornament of the male sex, as most people imagine, the brilliant crown was overshadowed by the raised feathers on the sides of the head, and was by no means in evidence as one would have expected it to be. The Gold-crest is a common enough bird in Great Britain, and I have often seen it in a wild state, but certainly I never realized what a beautiful little creature it really was, until I had the opportunity of examining it in captivity. Then again arose the thought of the incidence of its capture — in the middle of a big city in the darkness — and the remembrance of this tiny being's migration ; for, of course, it was proceeding south by night, when the fatal glare of the electric light at a great elevation lured it to its capture. And then I re- called my experience in Heligoland in 1876, where I first became acquainted with the phenomenon of bird-migration in its fullest sense, when I spent a fortnight on that sea-girt rock, and witnessed with Mr. Frank Nicholson and the late Mr. Henry Seebohm, the autumn flight of many a migrant. Heligoland is an isolated rock standing out in the Baltic Sea, off the mouth of the Elbe, and in 1 876 possessed but a single tree of any size, which was growing half-way down the staircase which connects the upland with the shore. In this tree, during the daytime, settled many little weary birds after their long journey across the sea, and as we went down each day to the shooting-ground on Sandy Island, several Gold-crests would be laid out for purchase by the small boys of the island, who shot them with catapults. Extinct Forms 3 Truly wonderful little travellers, if only their migration to Heligoland is considered; but we know that on the east coast of England also, the Gold-crests arrive during the autumn in vast numbers, travelling across the North Sea to our shores. Thus in every sense this little species may be considered a wonderful bird, and there are numbers of species just as wonderful in their flight and in their general economy. In talking of extraordinary birds, however, our minds naturally revert to the past, and we are tempted to inquire as to the origin of bird-life on the earth, and as to the aspect of the forerunners of the present race of birds which we see around us to-day. In no Class of animals is the record so imperfect. Fossil mammals and reptiles have been discovered in the beds of bygone ages, which help greatly to the understanding of the present forms of these animals on the earth, as evolved from those of past times, but with birds the case is different. Probably on account of their lighter bodies, which may have been swept away by rivers or torrents, the fossil remains of birds are few, and we know very little of the species which inhabited the globe in ancient times. The fossil birds as yet dis- covered help us but little, for we find that where extinct Penguins, Tinamous, etc., have been discovered, it has been in the countries where both these groups flourish at the present day. The same may be said of the flightless Emeus and Rhcas, though we have evidence in the case of the Ostrich that its range was once more widely extended than it is in our own era. The discovery of a large extinct species of Coot (Fulica) in the Chatham Islands, which finds its nearest ally in an extinct form in Mauritius, associated as it is with other fossil forms of flightless Rails (Rallida) and other birds, suggests to us the possibility of a former land connection between portions of the earth at present far distant and separated by seas of great depth. Wonders of the Bird World Thus a problem of great interest is at once suggested, of which I speak more fully in a subsequent chapter on the ' Geographical Distribution of Birds.' Figure of the A rchaopttryx. From a picture by W. P. Pycraft. Certainly one of the most wonderful of birds must have been the Arch&opteryx, an archaic type of the Jurassic age, and known only from the fossil remains of two specimens discovered in the lithographic slate of Solenhofen in Bavaria. Like several other ancient forms of bird life, the Archaopteryx, or Lizard-tailed bird, possessed actual teeth, and it had a very reptilian- looking head. That it was a real bird, however, is proved by the impression of the feathers which are to be seen Head of A rckaopteryx. The Phororachus 7 in the slabs of lithographic stone enclosing its remains in the British Museum and in Berlin. It will be seen from Suggested restoration of Phororachus inflatus, Amegh. From a sketch by W. P. Pycraft. the illustration which has been drawn from the restoration designed by my friend, Mr. W. P. Pycraft, and now in the 8 Wonders of the Bird World Bird Gallery at the Natural History Museum, that the Arch&opteryx possessed a totally different kind of tail from that of any existing bird. Instead of having a fan-shaped tail like that of our ordinary birds at the present day, it had a long lizard-like tail, consisting of some twenty vertebrae, to which were attached in pairs the rectrices, or tail-feathers. It was apparently of the size of our Common Rook (Trypanocorax frugilegus}. Another peculiarity of the Archaopteryx lies in the fact that the three fingers of the wing corresponding to the three fingers of existing birds, were all furnished with a large claw, just as are the fingers of reptiles. In those few birds of the present day which have claws on the wing, never more than two are found, that on the third finger being absent. In at least one instance, that of the Hoatzin, these claws have a functional value, being used by the nestling for climbing purposes. Among the many fossil forms discovered in the Cretaceous beds, two from North America particularly deserve notice, viz. the genera Hesperornism& Ichthyornis of Professor Marsh. Both of these had actual teeth, and the first opinion of the describer was that they formed a separate and distinct Order of Birds, which he called Odontornitlies, but recent research tends to prove that Hesperornis was a kind of flightless Diver, and Ichthyornis was probably allied to the Cormorants of our day. More wonderful birds of the Eocene period have also been discovered in Patagonia. These are called Stereornithes, and of one of them Mr. Py craft has attempted a restoration, viz. of the genus Phororachus, based upon the remains discovered by Professor Ameghino, and now in the Natural History Museum. It was in all probability a giant form of Seriama, a bird peculiar to South America, and one which has been variously placed by ornithologists among the Hawks, or near the Bustards and Cranes. In general aspect a Seriama is not unlike the Secretary Bird (Strpentarius secretarius) of Africa, and in many of their The Secretary Bird 9 habits these curious birds resemble each other. They are both amply crested, they have long legs and a graduated The Secretary-Bird (Serfientarius secretariu^). tail, and the bill is Accipitrine and Hawk-like, more so io Wonders of the Bird World the Secretary Bird, which is, moreover, a thorough ground Hawk in its ways. It is an inhabitant of the more open country in Africa, and is everywhere protected on account of its supposed utility in killing snakes, and especially cobras. The latter it is said to approach with the wings spread out in front of it to act as a shield, and from under this protection it rains a shower of blows of extraordinary power with its feet, and generally ends by crushing the reptile in a very short time. Any one who has seen a Secretary Bird strike a dead rat and reduce it to a pulp in a few seconds, can bear witness to the hammer-like force with which the bird brings down its feet on its victim. And this is the more remarkable, because Mr. Layard says that the young Secretaries have such brittle legs, that they snap, if the birds are startled into a run. Stalking through the grass, the great height of the Secretary, thanks to its long legs, enables it to take a wide view of the surrounding country and it is thus able to perceive its prey at a considerable distance. It at once elevates its crest and spreads its wings, and in the contest which ensues, the cobra will have but little chance, though on some occasions the Secretary comes off second best, and has been known to die from the poison of the snake, should the latter succeed in drawing blood. The bird is capable of swallowing snakes five or six feet in length and four inches in diameter, and it also devours rats and lizards, tortoises, as well as locusts and other insects. The South American Seriama (Cariama cristatd) is a much smaller bird, and is an inhabitant of the open Campos of south-eastern Brazil and Argentina. An allied species, Burmeister's Seriama (Chunga burmeisteri), is found in the province of Tucuman. Both forms of Seriama are ground birds, and the common species inhabits the grassy country, while the Chunga lives in the forest. They have a harsh and screaming cry, and feed on insects The Seriama II and berries, as well as snakes and other reptiles. They have the same peculiar habit as the Secretary of pounding The Seriama (CariatiM cristata). their prey to a pulp by striking it with their feet. 1 he nest is placed in a low bush, and the two eggs are some- 12 Wonders of the Bird World what like those of the Rails (Rallid(B\ being rather rounded and spotted. Their method of nesting is also different from that of the Cranes and Bustards, but it does to some extent resemble that of the Secretary, which builds a huge nest in a bush or a tree, and also lays but two eggs, which are white, slightly smudged with rust-colour. The Seriama must in fact be considered as a survival of some ancient form of bird life, of which probably PJwrorachus and the other Stereornithes were the forerunners. Of the Struthious or Ratite Birds x there are four distinct stocks existing at the present day, viz. the Ostriches (Stritthionida) in Africa, and Rheas (Rkeidce) in South America . the Emeus (Dromceida) and the Cassowaries (Casuariide) in the Australian Region; and the Kiwis (Apterygida) in New Zealand. In the latter country also lived within historic times the gigantic Moas (Dinar nithida), which had close allies in the great Struthious birds of Madagascar (Aipyornis and Mullerornis). Of the Moas there were many species and several genera, varying much in size, from the great Dinornis maximus, which stood twelve feet high, to the smaller forms, such as A nomalopteryx parva, which were not more than three feet in height. Some of the lesser Moas possessed a hallux or hind toe, and thus they resembled their smaller New Zealand cousins, the Kiwis, and differed from the Ostriches, Emeus, and Rheas. The cause of the extinction of the Moas in New Zealand has, as yet, not received any satisfactory explanation. One of the most recent discoveries of remains took place on an exposed piece of rising ground, where a man, while ploughing, happened to unearth a large bone, which he sent to Dr. H. O. Forbes, who was then the Director of the Christchurch Museum at Canterbury, New Zealand. On proceeding to the place Dr. Forbes ascertained by 1 So called from the absence of a keel to the sternum or breast- bone, which thus resembles a raft or flat-bottomed boat (ratis). Ratite or Struthious Birds 13 probing the ground with an iron rod that the bones were not scattered over the whole area, but were confined to a comparatively small and narrow space, not exceeding thirty yards in length. Yet, on digging down to this queer sepulchre, remains of no less than six hundred Moas of all sizes were discovered, as well as those of Geese, Ducks, Birds of Prey, and other birds : so that, even if some unforeseen catastrophe had overwhelmed this herd of flightless Moas, the presence of birds of such strong flight as Ducks and Hawks is still unaccounted for. It seems certain that the Moas survived until comparatively recent times, as remains of the skin of the feet and actual feathers of the birds have been discovered. Although of such size and massiveness that some of them out-topped our Ostriches in height, the wings were certainly vestigial,1 even if they were developed at all. The Ratitce which survive at the present day are all birds of considerable size, some of them, like the Ostriches, being gigantic. The latter birds are easily separated from the other forms by their having only two toes, nor have they any " after-shaft " to the body-feathers. This "after-shaft," as it is called, has the appearance of a duplicate of the main feather, and springs from the inner surface of the base of the same quill. In most birds it is very small, and is often absent altogether, but in some of the Ratite birds it is strongly developed and acquires the same length as the shaft of the main feather. This is the case in the Emeus, Cassowaries, and Moas, which thus appear to be clothed with double feathers. The Emeus (Dromaida] are entirely Australian, and are inhabitants of the open country, from many parts of which they have now been exterminated. They have no visible wings and tail, both 1 The wings in the Ratite Birds are often spoken of as "rudimentary," but as they are really the remains of what were once well-developed organs, I prefer to speak of them as " vestigial." 14 Wonders of the Bird World of which are vestigial, and are hidden below the dense body-feathering. The Cassowaries (Casuariida] have the same long "after-shaft" as the Emeus, but they show a remarkable development of the wing ; this consists of a few strong black shafts, resembling horny spines, which have no barbs like ordinary quills, but project beyond the feathers of the sides of the body, and form a visible remnant of a once functional wing. All the Cassowaries are more or less brightly coloured on the bare portions of the head and neck, and are generally ornamented with wattles, while on the top of the head there is usually a large horny casque. The inner toe also is furnished with a remarkable long straight claw. The Cassowaries are found in New Guinea and the adjacent islands, as well as in the Cape York Peninsula of Australia. The Rheas (Rheida) are exclusively South American in their habitat; they resemble the Ostriches of Africa in their general appearance, and in the want of an " after- shaft " to the body-feathers, but they have three toes like the other Ratitcs. It may lastly be mentioned that in Madagascar there have been found enormous eggs of a Ratite bird, generally in the lap of the skeleton of some chief, presumably to afford him sustenance during his passage to the other world. These eggs have since been identified as belonging to gigantic Moa-like birds (ALpyornithidce) which inhabited Madagascar within historic times, and of which the sub- fossil remains of several species have been discovered. The eggs are the largest of any known bird, living or extinct. The Kiwis differ much from the other Ratite Birds, having, like the Emeus, perfectly vestigial wings and no visible tail, but they possess a hallux or hind toe. Their plumage is of a hairy texture, and with their long curved bill, in which the nasal opening is situated near the tip in- stead of near the base, they have the appearance of gigantic The Kiwis 15 and clumsy-footed Rails. In my opinion they are nothing but Struthious Rails, and they very much resemble the latter birds in their nocturnal and retiring habits, and in their method of progression over the ground. Like other Struthious birds, however, they are great adepts at kicking, and in the series of living Kiwis exhibited by the Hon. Walter Rothschild at a meeting of the British Ornithologists' Club, it was amusing to see that some of Kiwi (Apteryx australis). the species kicked forwards and some backwards, but all delivered the stroke with right good will and like a flash of lightning. A formidable wound could be made by their strong feet, armed, as the toes are, with sharp and massive claws. In habits the Kiwis are strictly nocturnal birds, and greatly resent being disturbed in the daytime. Their prin- cipal food consists of worms, for which they probe into the 16 Wonders of the Bird World soft ground, and in search of which they are probably aided by a keen sense of touch and smell, in which the peculiar position of the nostrils doubtless plays a part. Another remarkable feature in the Apteryx is the large size of the white eggs which it lays, in this respect resembling the jEpyornithida of Madagascar. One characteristic of the Ratite Birds must also be mentioned, and that is, that the incubation of the eggs is undertaken by the male bird. As will be seen later on, there arc a few other species in which this is the rule, but in these instances there may be some reason in the shape of protective colouration, but in the Ratitist?is rex\ which lives in the districts of the Upper Nile. Since the Soudan has been so disturbed, no specimens of animals have been sent from there for several vears, and it is a long time since a Shoe- The Whale-headed Stork 39 bill has been seen in Europe. The range of this peculiar bird must be very limited, as it has not been procured in any other of the marshy districts of Africa. The first mention of this extraordinary bird occurs in the writing of the German traveller Werner, who visited the White Nile districts in 1840-41, when he states that he saw a bird on the so-called No Lake, which was " as large as a young camel, with a bill like a Pelican, but with- out the pouch." Eight years later an Italian slave-dealer, named Nicola Ulivi, brought two skins to Khartoum, which were ultimately bought by an English traveller, Mr. Mans- field Parkyns, in Cairo, and sent to London, where they were described and figured by Gould in 1851. The English Consul Petherick had several living examples at Khartoum, and in 1860 he managed to bring two of them alive to England, where they lived for some time in the Zoological Gardens. He observes — " The Balceniceps, though found only in or near water, is but rarely seen on the banks of the Nile, and then only during a short period of the year, when the interior is dried up, in the summer, during the short hot season preceding the rains. It prefers the natural banks and morasses of the interior, where the shallowness of the water, distributed over a large surface, affords it greater facilities for wading than the banks of the Nile. These frequently shelve off into deep water more or less abruptly, and thus furnish but comparatively few spots favourable to the support and habits of the bird. " For this reason, at about 100 miles west of the Nile, in from 5° to 8° N. Lat, at Gaba Shambyl, where I have a station of elephant-hunters, these interesting birds exist in greater numbers than on the Nile or the comparatively deeper waters of the Bahr-el-Gazal. At Gaba Shambyl, striking off directly west from the Nile, the country for the first thirty miles rises wfth an almost imperceptible slope, when it again decreases in elevation for a distance of from 40 Wonders of the Bird World sixty to seventy miles. Here it becomes a large morass, with occasional dry spots, which form so many islands after the annual rains, in a sheet of water that from north to south extends probably over one hundred and fifty miles, having no outlet directly to the Nile, but, when the water is at a certain height, overflowing into a channel connecting it with the Bahr-el-Gazal. This reservoir, which is more or less supplied with water all the year round, abounds in reeds and thick brush, and is the favourite retreat and home of the Balceniceps. The birds are here seen in clusters of from a pair to perhaps one hundred together, mostly in water, and when disturbed they fly low over the surface of the latter, and settle at no great distance ; but, if frightened and fired at, they rise in flocks high in the air, and after hovering and wheeling around, will settle on the highest trees, and as long as their disturbers are near, will not return to the water. Their roosting-place at night is, to the best of my belief, on the ground. Their food consists principally of fish and water-snakes, which they have been seen by men to catch and devour. They will also feed on the intestines of the dead animals, the carcases of which they easily rip open with the strong hook of the upper mandible. " The breeding time of the Bal&niceps is in the rainy season during the months of July and August, and the spot chosen is in the reeds or high grass immediately on the water's-edge, or on some small elevated and dry spots entirely surrounded by water. The birds, before laying, scrape a hole in the earth in which, without any lining of grass or feathers, the female deposits her eggs. As many as a dozen eggs have been found in the same nest. Num- bers of these nests have been robbed by men of both eggs and young, but the young birds so taken have' invariably died. After repeated unsuccessful attempts to rear them, and more trouble than one can imagine, after two years' The Whale- headed Stork (Balamicefs rex\ The Whale-headed Stork 43 perseverance I at last succeeded in hatching some eggs under hens, which, at a considerable distance from Gala Shambyl, I procured from the Raik Negroes. As soon as I got the hens to lay and in due time to sit, by replacing several of their eggs with half the number of those of the Balceniceps, as fresh as possible from the nest, the locality of which was previously known, I eventually succeeded in hatching several birds. These ran about the premises of my camp, and, to the discomfort of the poor hens, would persist in performing all sorts of unchicken-like manoeuvres with their large beaks and wings in a small artificial pool, constantly supplied with water by several" negresses retained in my service for their especial benefit. Negro boys of the tribe (the Raik) were also employed to supply their little pond with live fish, upon which, and occasionally on the intestines of animals killed for our use and chopped into small pieces, they were reared. As may be supposed, the birds became the pets of my ' Bizouks,' as I frequently called my Khartoumers ; and as they grew up, with extended wings and a rattle-like noise produced by the snapping of their bills, they would follow them round the large enclosure of my camp. The eggs are white, or bluish-white with a chalky covering, and on being held up to the light, the lining is seen to be of a dark green." I cannot conclude this chapter on wonderful birds without a reference to our old friend the Dodo (Didus ineptus). This quaint creature lived on the island of Mauritius, where it was plentiful a little more than three hundred years ago. Its unwieldy size and feebly developed wings deprived the poor Dodo of any chance of survival on the earth, as it was not able to fly and so escape from its enemies; and the survivors of this interesting and anomalous form of bird-life were annihilated by the sailors who visited the island and brought cats and pigs with them, which 44 Wonders of the Bird World must have hastened the process of extermination. The Dodo was a gigantic, flightless, antique Pigeon, and appears to have been confined to the island of Mauritius, where a considerable number of its osteological remains have been unearthed during the past forty years, so that more than one nearly complete skeleton is to be found in Museums in this country. Several drawings and paintings of the bird are also preserved in various Institutions in Europe, but the actual remains of the bird itself are very few, and no perfect specimen of a stuffed Dodo is in any collection to-day, though in the Oxford Museum is a head and right foot, and the British Museum possesses a left foot. Another head of the Dodo is in the Copenhagen Museum. Many of the pictures representing the bird must have been drawn from life, for it is certain that more than one speci- men reached Europe alive. The sketch of the bird in the present volume is drawn from the oil-painting in the British Museum, which is believed to have been the work of Roe- landt Savery, who died in 1639, and who painted several pictures of the Dodo, apparently from living birds. In the neighbouring islands of Reunion and Rodriguez also lived two Didine birds. Of that which inhabited the former island nothing remains but tradition, and no speci- mens of any kind are known. Of the " Solitaire " (Pezophaps solitarius] of Rodriguez, many osteological remains have been discovered in the caves of that island, and we also know something of its habits from the writings of the old Huguenot, Leguat, who landed on Rodriguez with other refugees in 1691, and lived there for two years. Although discredited and considered fabulous by many recent writers, the description by Leguat of the Solitaire has been strongly confirmed by the bones discovered by Sir Edward Newton and other naturalists who have made explorations in the island. The males are said to have fought for the females with great pugnacity, and they possessed a weapon of The Dodo 45 some power in the " little round mass " of bone on the wing, which Leguat describes as being as " big as a musket- ball." These knobs have been found among the remains of the birds, and Professor Newton says that the " number of bones that had been broken and united during life contained in the collections brought to this country is very consider- The Dodo (Didus ineptus). able, showing the effects of the cestus-like armature of the wing." J The following is Leguat's account of the bird and its ways.2 1 ' Dictionary of Birds,' p. 891. 2 'A New Voyage to the East Indies,' by Francis Leguat and his companions. 8vo. London, 1708. 46 Wonders of the Bird World "Of all the Birds in the Island, the most remarkable is that which goes by the Name of the ' Solitary,' because 'tis very seldom seen in Company. There are abundance of them. The Feathers of the Males are of a brown-grey Colour; the feet and beak are like a Turkey's but a little more crooked. They have scarce any Tail, but their Hind- part cover'd with Feathers is Roundish, like the Crupper of a Horse ; they are taller than Turkeys. Their neck is straight, and a little longer in proportion than a Turkey's when it lifts up its Head. Its Eye is black and lively, and its Head without Comb or Cop. They never fly, their wings are too little to support the weight of their Bodies ; they serve only to beat themselves, and flutter when they call one another. They will whirl about for twenty or thirty times together on the same side, during the space of four or five Minutes ; The Motions of their Wings makes then a noise very like that of a Rattle ; and one may hear it two hundred Paces off. The Bone of their Wings grows greater towards the Extremity, and forms a little round Mass under the Feathers, as big as "a Musket Ball ; That and its Beak are the chief Defence of this Bird. 'Tis very hard to catch it in the Woods, but easy in open Places, because we run faster than they, and sometimes we approach them without much Trouble. From March to September they are extremely fat, and tast admirably well, especially while they are young ; some of the Males weigh forty-five Pound. " The Females are wonderfully beautiful, some fair, some brown ; I call them fair because they are of the colour of fair Hair ; They have a sort of Peak like a Widow's, upon their Breasts, which is of a dun Colour. No one Feather is stragling from the other all over their Bodies, they being very careful to adjust themselves, and make them all even with their Beaks. The Feathers on their Thighs are round like shells at the end, and being there very thick, have an agreeable effect : They have two Risings on their ' Craws,' The Dodo 47 and the Feathers are whiter there than the rest, which livelily Represents the fine Neck of a Beautiful Woman. They walk with so much Stateliness and good Grace, that one cannot help admiring and loving them; by which means their fine Mein often saves their lives. " Tho' these Birds will sometimes very familiarly come up near enough to one, when we do not run after them, yet they will never grow Tame. As soon as they are caught they shed Tears without Crying, and refuse all manner of Sustenance till they die. "We find in the Gizards of both Male and Female a brown stone, of the bigness of a Hen's egg ; 'tis somewhat rough, flat on one side, and round on the other, heavy and hard. We believe this stone was there when they were hatch'd, for let them be never so young, you meet with it always. They have never but one of 'em, and besides, the Passage from the Craw to the Gizard is so narrow, that a like Mass of half the bigness cou'd not pass. It served to whet our knives, better than any other Stone whatsoever. " When these Birds build their Nests, they choose a clean Place, gather together some Palm-Leaves for that purpose, and heap them up a foot and a half high from the Ground, on which they sit. They never lay but one Egg, which is much bigger than that of a Goose. The Male and Female both cover it in their turns, and the young is not hatch'd till at seven Weeks end. All the while they are sitting upon it or are bringing up their young one, which is not able to provide for its self in several Months, they will not suffer any other Bird of their Species to come within two hundred yards round of the Place: But what is very singular is, The Males will never drive away the Females, only when he perceives one he makes a noise with his Wings to call the Female, and she drives the un- welcome Stranger away, not leaving it till 'tis without her 48 Wonders of the Bird World Bounds. The Females do's the same as to the Males whom she leaves to the Males, and he drives them away. We have observ'd this several times, and I affirm it to be true ! " The Combats between them on this occasion lasts sometimes pretty long, because the Stranger only turns about, and does not fly directly from the Nest. However the others do not forsake it, till they have quite driv'n it out of their Limits. After these Birds have rais'd their young One, and left it to its self, they are always together, which the other Birds are not, and tho' they happen to mingle with other Birds of the same Species, these two Companions never disunite. We have often remark 'd, that some days after the young one leaves the Nest, a Company of thirty or forty brings another young one to it ; and the new fledg'd Bird with its Father and Mother joining with the Band, march to some bye Place. We frequently follow'd them, and found that afterwards the old ones went each their way alone, or in Couples, and left the two young ones together, which we call'd a Marriage." The above account, of the authenticity of which there is no reason to doubt, introduces us to a type of Bird life now extinct, but existing on the globe within historic times, and a strange interest therefore attaches to the nearest of kin to the Dodo which survives at the present moment. This is the Toothed-billed Pigeon of Samoa (Dtdunculus strigi- rostns). This bird, which is about the size of an ordinary domestic Pigeon, is only found in the Navigator's Islands, as Samoa is sometimes called. It has perfectly-formed wings, but until recently it never used them, as it had no natural enemies in its island home, and was accustomed not only to live on the ground, but to breed in colonies and deposit its eggs on the side of a hill. As Samoa became more civilized, however, the usual accompaniments of Tooth-billed Pigeon 49 civilization prevailed in the shape of cats and rats, the former devouring the birds and the latter their eggs, and speedy extermination appeared to be the fate in store for the Didunculus. It then appears that the Pigeons began to use their wits, and did not quite see why they should be wiped off the face of the earth, as their distant relatives the Dodo and the Solitaire had been, and they not only began to use their wings to save themselves, but changed their mode of nidification, and took to building their nests in trees. The Rev. S. J. Whitmee, who was for long a mission- ary in Samoa, credits the Didunculus with a high intel- ligence, and writes — " It has probably been frightened when roosting, or during incubation, by attacks of cats, and has sought safety in the trees. Learning, from frequent repetition of the fright, that the ground is a dangerous place, it has acquired the habit of building, roosting, and feeding on the high trees ; and this change of habit is now operating for the preservation of this interesting bird, which a few years ago was almost extinct." * Amongst the Swimming Birds there are also some remarkable forms, and some of the most curious of these are the Darters or Snake-Birds (P/otus\ which are found in the temperate and tropical portions of both hemispheres. These long-necked birds are allied to our Cormorants (P halacrocorax\ and have much similarity in habits to the latter, though they are inhabitants of rivers and swamps, rather than of the sea-coasts like the Cormorants and Shags. The latter have a remarkably strong hooked bill, recalling that of an Accipitrine bird, whereas the Darters have a long thin bill which is furnished with saw-like edges turned at a backward angle like a barb, so that a fish transfixed by the unerring aim of the Darter's bill has no chance of escape, and with this bill a wounded bird is capable of inflicting a severe wound on its captor. In 1 Proceedings ' of the Zoological Society, 1874, p. 184. K 50 Wonders of the Bird World addition to this barb-bearing bill, the Darter has a very curious "kink" in the neck, in the region of the eighth and ninth vertebrae, which accounts for the irregular curve which is seen in the bird's neck as it sits at rest. On diving after a fish, which it does with extraordinary celerity, the Darter pierces its prey through with the bill, for by reason of the muscles which are attached to the " kink," the neck is let go, as if it were a spring, and is straightened out in the act of striking. The name of " Snake-bird " is given to the Darter, from its habit of swimming with the body submerged, so that only the long, snake-like head and neck are seen above the surface of the water. In the Fish-house at the Zoological Gardens an example of a Darter is generally to be found, and the marvellous diving powers of the bird can there be studied, as well as its activity in securing a fish. It should be noticed that a Darter propels itself under water by means of its feet, and does not use the wings at all. During the breeding season the male displays consider- able power of " showing-off" to his mate, and flies in the air before her in zig-zag courses. The nests are built of sticks and placed on trees, often in close proximity and in the company of Herons and Cormorants, the eggs being chalky- white like those of the latter birds. Pelicans likewise have these chalky eggs, and in those of Cormorants and Grebes the real colour of the egg is greenish below, but this colour can only be observed by removing the outer layer of chalk. A relation of the Darter is the Frigate Bird, often called the " Man-of-War Bird." There are two species of the genus Fregata, a large and a small one, F. aquila and F. minor. Both are inhabitants of the tropical seas, and are remarkable for their powers of flight, and for their somewhat raptorial habits, for they pursue the smaller Gulls and Gannets and force them to disgorge their hard-earned The African Darter 51 prey. Mr. Fritz Jansen says that the Frigate Bird of the Ellice Islands is domesticated by the natives, and when the The African Darter (Plotits leraillanti). Rev. S. J. Whitmee was in those islands in 1870 he saw scores of them about the villages sitting on long perch 52 Wonders of the Bird World erected for them near the beach. The natives procure the young birds and tie them by the leg and feed them until they are tame. Afterwards they let them loose, and they go out to sea to get their food, and return to their perches in the villages at intervals. The statements recently made by an adventurous traveller in Northern Australia, that he made tin discs from the bottom of disused milk- tins, scrawled on them in different languages the letters which announced his derelict condition on a desert island, and then tied the discs to the necks of Pelicans, which were in hundreds upon the latter, can scarcely be credited ; but Mr. Whitmee informed the writer that a post had been established on the Ellice Islands by some of the missionaries, and that the Frigate Birds were the postmen. Like our own Carrier Pigeons, they were used to take letters from one island to another, and he himself had more than once seen letters arrive in a quill which had been tied to the birds. The old male of the Frigate Bird has a red pouch, which it is able to distend to an enormous size. The bird, figured in our sketch (p. 24), was presented to the Natural History Museum by Captain Milner, who brought it home in the freezing chamber of his vessel. Much has been written about the buoyancy of the Frigate Bird's flight, and this can easily be believed, for the body appears to be full of air-cells. When the above specimen arrived at the Museum, it was to all intents and purposes as if it had been freshly shot, and by inserting a quill down the throat, we were able to inflate the whole skin of the bird, and there was scarcely a part which was not distended with air between the skin and the actual body. A very remarkable instance of a species which can fly when it is young, but loses the power of flight when adult, is seen in the Steamer-Duck (Tachyeres cinereus] of the Straits of Magellan. Mention of this Duck occurs in the The Steamer-Duck 53 narratives of Captain Cook and the early navigators, but the best resume of the history of the species is that given by Professor Cunningham, from whose work, the 5 Naturalist in the Straits of Magellan,' I take the following extract — - " The first detailed account of the habits of the Steamer- Duck is given by that intelligent and accurate observer of nature, Captain Philip Parker King, in his narrative of the voyage of the Adventure and Beagle. He states that, at Eagle Bay, beyond Cape San Isidro, in the Strait of Magellan, he ' saw, for the first time, that most remarkable bird the Steamer-Duck/ and observes that, ' before steam- boats were in general use, this bird was denominated, from its swiftness in skimming over the surface of the water, the " race-horse," a name which occurs frequently in Cook's, Byron's, and other voyages. It is a gigantic duck, the largest I have met with. It has the lobated hind toe placed far backwards, and other characteristics of the oceanic Ducks. The principal peculiarity of this bird is the short- ness and remarkably small size of the wings, which, not having sufficient power to raise the body, serve only to propel it along, rather than through, the water, and are used like the paddles of a steam- vessel. Aided by these and its strong broad-webbed feet, it moves with astonishing velocity. It would not be an exaggeration to state its speed at from twelve to fifteen miles an hour. The peculiar form of the wing, and the short rigid feathers which cover it, together with the power this bird possesses of remaining a considerable time under water, constitute a striking link between the Ducks and the Penguins. It has been noticed by many former navigators. The largest we found measured forty inches from the extremity of the bill to that of the tail, and weighed thirteen pounds ; but Captain Cook- mentions in his voyage, that the weight of one was twenty- nine pounds. It is very difficult to kill them, on account 54 Wonders of the Bird World of their wariness and the thick coat of feathers, which is impenetrable by anything smaller than swan-shot. The flavour of their flesh is so strong and fishy, that at first we killed them solely for specimens. Five or six months, however, on salt provisions taught many to think such food palatable, and the seamen never lost an opportunity of eating them. I have preferred these Ducks to salt beef, as a preventive against scurvy, rather than from liking their taste.' King also distinguished two species of Steamer- Duck, whereof one (the Anas brachyptera of Latham, Microptems brachypterus of Quoy and Gaimard), was entirely incapable of flight ; and the other, which he denom- inated by the specific name of Anas patachonicus, was stated to be smaller in size than the A. brachypterus^ possessed of volant powers, and differing also in other points relating to the plumage. Mr. Darwin, who describes the bird as he saw it at the Falklands, mentions but one species, the original A. brachyptera^ which he states to be incapable of flight. " I will now pass on to offer a few remarks on the bird, as derived from numerous observations which I had oppor- tunities of making with regard to it at the Falkland Islands, in the Strait of Magellan, and on the west coast of Pata- gonia. At the outset I may state that, though undoubtedly some Steamer-Ducks fly, and others appear to be either wholly incapable of flight, or do not make use of their faculties in this respect, it is, nevertheless, my belief there is only one species of the genus Micropterus, and that the variations in size, capability of flight, and colouring of plumage, are chiefly dependent on the age of the birds. Secondly, it is my opinion that it is the young birds that can fly, and that the power of flight or the disposition to fly diminishes with age. I have arrived at this conclusion after the examination of a number of speci- mens of volant and non-volant birds, having ascer- The Steamer-Duck 55 tained by a careful inspection of the condition of the skeleton, and other points in the structure of the volant specimens (the plumage of which entirely corresponded with King's short description of Micropterus pataclionicus\ that they were all immature individuals (probably the young of the year), and having as invariably found that the non-volant specimens were full-grown birds. " The average length of the adult birds may be stated as about thirty inches, and I do not think that I ever met with specimens measuring more than three feet from the tip of the bill to the tip of the tail, so that I am inclined to believe that the specimen mentioned by King as forty inches in length was of exceptional size, and I feel no doubt that there must have been some mistake as regards the birds stated by Cook to weigh twenty-nine pounds. "The Steamer-Duck is very plentiful on the shores of the Falkland Islands, in the Strait of Magellan, and in the channels of Western Patagonia, as well as at Chiloe, which is the northernmost locality where I have seen it It is generally to be observed in pairs, or small flocks of six or seven individuals, stationed on the rocks, or swimming about in the extensive beds of the ' kelp,' which girdles the coast in most spots; but, occasionally, large flocks com- posed of many hundreds are to be met with. When undisturbed in the water they swim quietly along, producing two peculiar notes — that of the male being a sort of mew rapidly repeated, while that of the female is a kind of deep growl — and diligently searching the fronds of the kelp for the animals to be found thereon, or diving for mussels, which appear to be one of their staple articles of diet, as I always found fragments of the shells in the stomachs of those which I examined. The stomach is a most powerful organ, with very thick muscular coats, and the lower part of the windpipe or trachea of the male possesses an enlarge- ment of considerable size. This, which is likewise to be 56 Wonders of the Bird World met with in the males of many other species of Ducks, serves to modify the voice. At the Falkland Islands, in common with many other birds, the Steamer-Ducks are much tamer than they are in the Strait of Magellan, allow- ing the observer to come within a few yards of them without accelerating their speed. When alarmed at the prospect of impending danger, however, they lose no time in getting up steam, paddling through the water at a marvellous rate by dint of flapping their little wings, the motion of which is so excessively rapid, that it is difficult to convince one's self that they are not revolving, leaving a long wake of foam like that produced by a miniature steamer behind them, and not ceasing this method of progression till a safe distance has intervened between them and the object of their dread. They often assist their escape in addition by diving, and coming up to the surface at a distance of many yards in a direction upon which it is impossible to calculate, when they show their great heads for a moment, and then repeat the manoeuvre. Though the rate of their speed has, I think, been considerably over-estimated by Captain King, it is yet so great as to render it impossible for a boat, however well manned, to overtake them, except by hemming them in to some small cove, where a gun may be used with tolerable chance of success. It is in general in such situ- ations that those birds which can fly take to the wing, and those which cannot have recourse to their diving powers. Even when hit they very frequently escape, for unless they receive a very heavy charge of shot, their coat of down and feathers protects them from serious injury. Their nests, in general placed on a sloping bank near the sea, and under the shelter of a low bush, are formed principally of grass. In these four or five large cream-coloured eggs (the dimen- sions of which may be roughly stated as three and a half by two and a quarter inches) are deposited, and covered with a layer of soft grey down. The young brood appear The Penguins 57 to be tended by the parent birds for a considerable period after they leave the egg, and may often be seen swimming after them. Like the old birds, they swim and dive actively, coming up after the plunge at a long distance." Perhaps the most wonderful of all the birds which live on the globe at the present day are the Penguins, which constitute the Order Sphenisciformes. Their rock-haunting and fishing habits, as well as the feeble development of their wings, have caused them to be associated in the minds of naturalists with the Auks (Alciformes) of the Northern Hemisphere, which the Penguins in a manner represent in the Antarctic Seas. . A slight acquaintance, however, with these two forms of birds is sufficient to dispel any idea of their affinity. However small the wings of the Auks may be, they are actual wings, and not " flippers " as in the Penguins. The latter birds cannot fly, whereas the Guillemots, Razor-bills, Puffins and other Auks can fly well, the exception having been the Great Auk (Plautus impennis\ which, as is well known, was a flightless bird. Penguins may, therefore, be admitted to form an Order of Birds by themselves, with no actually close ally at the present day. On land they progress clumsily, and walk in an upright position, but in the sea they are surprisingly active, and by the aid of their fin-like wings they urge themselves through the water with as much speed as some other birds traverse the air, their food consisting of fish and other marine animals. In swimming they keep their feet outstretched behind, never using them to propel their bodies through the water. Although found at considerable distances from land, they betake themselves to desolate and rocky islands for the purposes of nidification, and vast colonies of Penguins are often found on some of the islands of the Antarctic Ocean. One species, and that the largest 58 Wonders of the Bird World of the Order, the Emperor Penguin (Aptenodytes forsteri}, is only found in the region of the icy barrier towards the South Pole. The King Penguin (A. patachonica\ of which the accompanying illustration is a portrait, is somewhat more widely distributed, and is found from the Falkland Islands and the Straits of Magellan to Kerguelen and the islands off the south of New Zealand. Young Penguins are thickly covered with down, and the King Penguins which have lived in the Zoological Gardens have retained their clothing of brown down until they have almost reached the size of the adults. The upright position in which the birds habitually sit requires undoubtedly much strength of limb, and we find that, in the Penguins, the legs are very short and that the metatarsus is extremely broad and powerful, the three principal bones being more distinct throughout life than in other birds, and divided one from the other by deep grooves. The whole body of the Penguin is covered with small scale-like feathers, differing from those of other birds in the great breadth of the shaft and the small size of the vane ; and as there are no quills or flight-feathers, the wings are more like fins in appearance. The bones are also modified in a parallel manner to the anterior limbs of Whales and Porpoises, being flattened and jointed in such a way that there is very little allowance for motion at the elbow and wrist, while the pollex or first digit is immovably fused with that of the second. Another remarkable peculiarity in the Penguin's osteology is the great breadth of the scapula or shoulder-blade, all these modifications of the skeleton tending to an enormous increase of swimming power. The species alluded to in the present chapter are only a few out of hundreds of others I might have chosen, each exhibiting some striking characteristic, and that I have not exhausted the wonderful birds will be seen in the Rookery of King-Penguins (Aftenodytes patachonkif). Wonderful Birds 61 following chapters, where other species, just as remarkable for their form or habits, will1 be treated of. In these intro- ductory pages, however, I have selected certain of the most divergent types of Bird life, and I hope that the illustrations of some of the wonderful forms which have lived on the surface of the globe in bygone times will have proved not without interest to the reader. CHAPTER III DECORATION IN BIRDS The Splendid Sun-bird. The difference in the colouring of the sexes— Evolution of Species— Sun-birds — Birds of Paradise — Lyre-birds — Motmots — Puffins — The methods by which Birds acquire their plumage. THE decoration of a bird is, as a rule, confined to the adult male. The females and the young birds are soberly coloured in comparison with the plumage of the old male, and that this is the general rule throughout the Class Aves is a well-known fact. As will be seen, however, later on, there are some remarkable exceptions, in which the female has the pre-eminence in ornamentation. The acquisition of brighter colours by the male, usually so pronounced in birds, probably depends upon sexual selection in the past, 62 Decorative Plumage 63 wherein the more brilliantly plumaged males would have possessed advantages over other males which had not these points to recommend them to the notice of the females. But that such an acquisition of brilliant colouring must have taken a long period of time to accomplish, is also evident, and even if the idea of sexual selection be mere theory, some of the facts which one meets with in a daily study of birds are interesting enough to make one hazard a possible explanation as to how such a develop- ment in the decoration of the male may have proceeded, even if it be impossible to give in detail the exact method by which it was accomplished. That the decorative plumage of the male bird is appreciated by himself and is used by him as an attractive presentation to win the favour of the female, must, it seems to me, be taken as an undoubted fact, whether it be the streaming plumes of a Bird of Paradise ; the hundred-eyed wing of an Argus Pheasant ; the coloured, and, to human notions, somewhat ugly, wattles of a Turkey or Domestic Fowl; the feathered shield of a Ruff; or the naked appendage to the head of a Bell-bird. The way in which the male birds show them- selves off to the females is a proof that they believe in the charm of their decorations. That sexual selection has played a great part in the development of brilliant plumage, seems to me a most feasible conclusion, and a reasonable conjecture as to how the evolution of species may have taken place, can even be hazarded. During the process of writing the ' Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,' which contains a description of all the species of birds known up to the time of writing the volumes, I must have handled nearly half a million of specimens, and in the volumes written by myself I have described the plumages of not less than 5000 different species, and have given references to the books in which they are mentioned, with a list of the specimens contained in the National Collection. 64 Wonders of the Bird World This has been an experience vouchsafed to no other ornith- ologist, and I have consequently had many opportunities of observing the wonderful complications and developments of plumage in the species I have had to describe. I have often regretted that I never followed the advice of my old friend and Mentor, Darwin, in making a series of notes, as I went along, on the laws which seem to prevail with regard to the style of colour in various groups of birds. Of late years, however, ornithologists have generally recognized that the question of colouration must be equally considered with that of structure in birds, and its importance has been universally admitted. Nor can the relations of the Orders and Families of Birds one to another ever be properly appreciated until every point of their economy has been considered, and certainly types of colouration form an important feature in classification. The mention of the name of Charles Darwin recalls to me the time when first I knew him. I was then the Librarian of the Zoological Society in Hanover Square, and, though little more than a boy at the time, I was hard at work on my Monograph of the Kingfishers. Nothing could exceed the kindness of the great naturalist towards young beginners, and I never felt afraid of appealing to him for his opinion on any matter which puzzled me. When I was appointed to the British Museum he was still the same kind friend to me, listening to my propositions with the utmost patience and courtesy, and always giving me encouragement, which was very welcome at the time, and is now one of my most cherished memories. In those days I was young and full of enthusiasm, and I always told him of the work which I proposed to do in different branches of ornithology, whereupon he gave me this sound advice as to the method I should pursue, and I now pass it on to the younger school of ornithologists, as coming from the lips of the great master himself. He Darwin's Advice 65 urged me to keep separate portfolios relating to the various heads of the subject I was studying, one for " Geographical Distribution," another for " Moult," " Migration," etc., and into these portfolios were to be cast the memoranda and references relating to each subject as I came across the facts. When the portfolios grew bulky in course of time, it would then be seen whether the accumulated material was sufficient to be arranged in order, and the results published to the world. This Darwinian method of work, which he informed me was the one adopted by himself, seems to me to be an admirable plan not only for scientific workers, but for all those engaged in the study of any difficult subject. It was also a great privilege in my early days to possess the friendship of Dr. Alfred Russel Wallace, who was always ready to help me with his notes and experiences of bird-life on the Amazon and in the Eastern Archipelago. Without the loan of the specimens in his collection, it would have been impossible to have completed my Monograph of the Kingfishers. Of the process of development from one form to another we can but form a guess, but there are one or two instances which occur to me which may be briefly noticed as of some interest. To take the family Nectarinidce or Sun- birds, for example. These little birds inhabit the tropical portions of the Old World, and are found throughout Africa and India; thence they occur eastwards to Southern China, and southwards to the Malay Archipelago and Northern Australia. In their metallic plumage, extensile tongue, and even to a certain extent in their habits, they resemble the Humming-birds (Trochili) of America, but the resemblance is merely superficial, and the two Families have little in common with each other as far as structure and affinity are concerned. The Humming-birds are Picarian, their relations being with the Swifts (Cypseli\ while the Sun-birds are thoroughly Passerine birds and not unlike Tits 66 Wonders of the Bird World in their ways. They are, however, allied to the Honey- suckers (Meliphagida) to a great extent, and have an extensile tongue. Like the Humming-birds, they are attracted to flowers in order to feed on the insects which frequent the latter, but they do not poise themselves in the air or hover in front of the blossoms like the Humming- birds, but cling like Tits to the stems of the flowers and extract the nectar and capture the tiny insects with their long tongue. Some of the finest Sun-birds equal in the beauty of their metallic plumage the grandest of the Humming-birds, as will be. seen by our illustration of the splendid Sun-bird (Cinnyris splendidus] of West Africa (p. 62). Here nearly the whole plumage is metallic, and one principal decorative feature is to be seen in the bright yellow pectoral tufts which stand out on each side of the breast. These yellow tufts play a great part in the orna- mentation of the male Sun-birds, and however small may be the amount of metallic colouring, the yellow tufts are always present, and hence we may argue that it is an ornament donned originally by some ancestral species and retained by the most brilliant of the succeeding species to the present day. Thus we find the divergence of decorative colour especially marked in the males, for the females are almost invariably birds of dull plumage, and the young males at first resemble their mothers. From this point of view the characters of some of the African species are remarkably interesting. In C. hart- laubi from West Africa (Fig. i) i The male of Cinnyris hartlaubi. , , , pectoral tufts are present, but the colour of the upper parts is dark olive and the breast grey. Metallic plumage only appears on the throat. The female is entirely plain. In C.cyanolcemus (Fig. 2) the general tint Sun-birds 67 of the plumage in both sexes is also dull, but, besides the yellow pectoral tufts of the male, there is also a further development of metallic colour, which here extends to the forehead as well as the throat. In the male of C. reichenbachi (Fig. 3) we find a plain-plumaged species, but with still more metallic decoration than in C. cyanolcemus, for it extends not only over the crown of the head but over the sides of the face, throat, and fore-neck, while as usual the pectoral tufts are still in strong evidence; 2. The male of T. cyttnoltrmus. 3. The male of C. reichenbachi. and other species can be quoted in which a gradual development of metallic colour has taken place in the male, until we meet with the beautiful C. splendidus here figured, which rivals any Humming-bird in the beauty of its metallic tints. If there is any possibility of the correct- ness of such a theory of development as I have indicated, the question may be asked : Is there a species known in which both sexes arc alike, and in which the male resembles the female in plumage ? I am able to state that there is such a species, in fact more than one, so that we may imagine that these represent some of the original and ancient forms of Nectarinida, in which the sexes were alike plain-coloured, and the metallic plumage has been gradually evolved by sexual selection or some other cause to their present beautiful livery. Such olive-coloured species exist in C. olivaceus of South Africa and C. obscurus 68 Wonders of the Bird World (Fig. 4) of West Africa, the males of which are olive in colour like the females of the majority of Sun-birds. Both sexes are alike plain- plumaged, and the only orna- ment of the male is the yellow pectoral tuft which would appear to be the first approach to a 4. Head of a™,™ ohcura, decorative plumage. A further evidence of the mode in which the brighter colours may first have been donned is shown in the young birds, the males of certain species at first resembling the females, but differing from them by dusky shading in the places where the metallic colours are prevalent in the adult males, pointing out in this survival the primitive indication of progress in the male plumage from the sober colour which anciently both sexes shared. One further case occurs to my mind, that of our common Kestrel Hawk (Cerchneis tinnunculus}. In the Birds of prey the sexes are generally alike in plumage, but the female is the larger and more powerful bird of the two. In the European Kestrel, however, the male is distinctly superior in colour to the female, the latter bird being rufous, barred with black, the tail being similarly patterned. In the male, however, the head is blue-grey, and so are the rump, upper tail-coverts and tail-feathers, the latter having a black band near the end. One sign of a very old female is the appearance of a shade of grey over the tail, as if there were a certain inherent tendency in the species towards the acquisition of a blue tail. The young male at first resembles the female and has a rufous tail, but the first indication of blue-grey colour appears on the rump and upper tail-coverts, as if the original inclination of the male to become grey had commenced in this portion of the bird's body, and had since become hereditary. The grey on the head appears Gaudy Decoration 69 later. The same changes take place, and the same sexual distinctions are found in the Lesser Kestrel (C. cenchris], and it should be observed that both these species are migratory, and that they therefore pass a more vigorous existence than the species which are resident and do not migrate. Again, as in the case of the Sun-birds, one may ask : Are there any species of Kestrels representing per- chance the original or ancient stock of these birds, in which the sexes are alike in colouring ? And again I can point to such instances in nature, when in Africa we find certain resident species of Kestrels, C. rupicoloides, C. fieldi, and C. alopex, in which the male does not differ from the female in colour, and none of these species are migratory. Returning, however, to the birds of gaudy decoration, our attention is first attracted by the Birds of Paradise, which are certainly the most fantastically-plumed birds of the world, though again in almost every genus of the Paradiseida, it is the male which has the wonderful dress which marks him as a creature apart from the ordinary run of birds. Stripped of his ornamental plumage it is- very difficult to distinguish a Bird of Paradise from a Crow, and some of the Manucodes and Paradise Crows are not only plain enough in colour to recall their near alliance to the family Corvidce, but, as in the Crows, the sexes do not differ in colour. With the typical Birds of Paradise, however, the case is different, and every kind of ornamental decoration is found in the Family. Thus some of the genera have shields of elongated and more or less metallic feathers, springing from the sides of the neck or chest, as in Drepa- nornis, Epimachus, and the allied genera of the Sickle- billed Birds of Paradise belonging to the Sub-family Epimachince. Another wonderful member of this group has dense yellow plumes enveloping the flanks, with the shafts of the feathers prolonged, so as to appear like wire 70 Wonders of the Bird World threads : hence its name of Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise (Seleuades nigricans). The majority of the Paradiseidce have shorter and more Crow-like bills than those above mentioned, and to the true Birds of Paradise, of the sub-family Paradiseince, belong those beautiful birds with red or yellow streamers with which we are accustomed to connect the name of the Family. These yellow-plumed birds were brought as curiosities from the Spice Islands by the ancient traders to the Moluccas, and as the sun-dried skins were given to them by the natives, who tore off the legs and also frequently the wings as well, the belief got abroad that the birds had no feet, and Linnaeus actually named one species Paradisea apoda on account of this tradition. Perfect specimens, however, were procured by Dr. A. R. Wallace during his celebrated expedition to the Malay Archipelago, and of late years it has become rare to see other than com- plete specimens of these beautiful birds, as they are now procured by well-trained hunters. It is a curious fact that, however beautifully the skins may be preserved, and how- ever carefully they may have been dressed with arsenic, the yellow flank-plumes retain their colour better in the skins of native manufacture which have never been properly cured, but only dried in the sun. Even when preserved in cabinets and kept from the light, these yellow plumes seem to fade, and when exposed as mounted specimens, the colour entirely leaves them in a few years. Although yellow, orange, crimson, and green, are colours which frequently occur among the Birds of Paradise, blue is com- paratively rare and is found only occasionally, as on the bald head of Schlegelia respublica, a bird from the island of Waigiou, which has a yellow mantle, a green breast-shield, and two long centre taii-feathers, which curl round in a half circle at the ends ; the principal feature of the species, however, is its blue head, which is naked, save for a few Birds of Paradise lines of feathers which traverse its surface. It was, there- fore, a great surprise to ornithologists when, in 1885, a Bird of Paradise with blue flank plumes was discovered in the Owen Stanley Mountains in British (/. e. South-eastern) The Blue Bird of Paradise (Paratiisornis rudolphi). New Guinea by the late Carl Hunstein, and named by Drs. Finsch and Meyer Paradisornis rudolphi, after the ill-fated Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, who was a keen ornithologist. The back and wings of the bird are also for the most part blue. 72 Wonders of the Bird World Another remarkable form is the Red Bird of Paradise (Uranornis rubra), in which the shafts of the two centre tail- feathers, instead of being merely narrow and wire-like as in the true Birds of Paradise (Paradisea), are flattened out so that they are exactly like a piece of whalebone. This curious development begins, however, as an ordinary feather, and even when the whalebone stage is reached, there is often to be found a tip of absolute feathery plume. In the true Birds of Paradise, such as Paradisea apoda or P. minor, the shafts of the central tail-feathers are produced into a kind of wire. In the young males, as Dr. Meyer has recently shown, the middle tail-feathers are at first no longer than the rest of the other rectrices, but are some- what pointed at the end, and in the first moult they seldom seem to grow far beyond the line of the other feathers, though the vanes of the outer or inner web are sometimes wanting, predicting that in a future stage they will be absent altogether. At the second moult the feathers still maintain a good deal of lateral web, and often widen out into a narrow racket at the ends, and in successive moults they appear to be always emitted from the sheath as wire- like shafts. It is not known whether the bird nibbles any of the web off with its bill, but it is probable that, as in the case of the Racket-tailed Parrots {Prioniturus}, the centre tail-feathers have a hereditary tendency to become wire- like, and from the figures given by Dr. Meyer, there would seem to be great irregularity in the amount of webbing to the shafts of these curiously-developed feathers. One of the most remarkable of the Birds of Paradise, and certainly one of the most wonderful birds in the whole world, is the King of Saxony's Bird of Paradise (Pteri- dophora alberti}. This extraordinary species was described by Dr. A. B. Meyer, the Director of the Dresden Museum, in 1894, and when he sent me a picture of the bird along with his original description, I could not help exclaiming Birds of Paradise 73 that it was impossible that such a bird could exist in nature ! Velvety black above and yellowish below, there is nothing very striking in the aspect of the bird itself, which is smaller than our Song-Thrush (Turdus musicus], but the " streamers " which it carries ! Poised in a socket on either side of the head is a long shaft-like plume, from which depends, on the lower side only, a series of little flags of blue enamel, each quite separate from the one which precedes it, and not of a feathery structure in the least. Wonderful as the bird was on its first reception, I have now seen several other males in Mr. Walter Roths- child's collection, and two are in the British Museum. Some remains of feathering at the extreme tips of some of the streamers suggest that even these enamelled appendages may be preceded by a feathery stage, but, as a matter of fact, we know that there are other birds which have enamelled ornamentation, such as the Curl-crested Toucan (Pteroglossus beanharnasii} of the Amazons, the Curl- crested Cuckoo {Lcpidogramums cumingi) of the Philip- pines, while even in Europe we have the Waxwing (Ampelis garrulus\ which has wax-like appendages to the secondary quills and the tail-feathers. In all of the 74 Wonders of the Bird World instances last mentioned, however, the ornamentation is produced by an elongation or flattening out of the shaft of the feather, so that the result is achieved by a somewhat similar process to that which produces the wire-like tail- feathers of the Birds of Paradise. I mentioned above that it was not known whether the Birds of Paradise themselves manipulated the shredding of the webs of their shaft-like plumes. It seems impossible to believe that they could possibly do this, for in the case of the Six-plumed Birds of Paradise (Parotia), it is difficult to understand how the birds could ever attain their object, seeing that the six plumes spring from the sides of the head, and grow, three on each side, to a length which the bird would find it difficult to reach with its bill. The species too have differently-sized rackets at the ends, these being large in P. sexpennis and very small in P. carolce. Again, in the King Bird of Paradise (Cicinnurus regius), the shaft of the central tail-feather is thin and wire-like, and ends in a metallic-green " boss " at the tip, this being of a circular form, the feather being curved round and round upon itself. Yet in younger specimens of the King Bird of Paradise we see that this metallic " boss " begins like a true feather, and curves more or less towards the point, so as to become sickle-shaped. We must accept, therefore, the theory of Dr. Meyer with regard to Paradisea minor, that it takes several moults before the perfect tail-feather is donned, and certainly I have seen specimens of C. regius in full moult, with the green-bossed central tail-feather just sprouting from the " pen," so that it is evident that when once the metallic " boss " has been attained, it is resumed in its perfect condition at each moult, and never returns to the feathered stage. A propos of the Birds of Paradise and their moult, it must be said that even in this function they arc most remarkable birds and totally unlike Crows, for they seem to moult their feathers in great patches, so that The Lyre-bird 75 when the new ones are developed, large portions of the bird's body are covered with pen-feathers, the sheaths of which are as conspicuous as they are in young Kingfishers and other Picarian Birds. While on the subject of gaudy decoration in birds, we The Lyre-bird (Menura superba). must notice one instance of the ornamentation of the tail, which is equal to anything exhibited by the Birds of Paradise, or by any other bird in existence. This is seen in the Lyre-birds of Australia, and they are among the many bizarre types of birds which are found in that portion of the globe. At first sight the Lyre-bird looks like a kind of 76 Wonders of the Bird World Game-bird, and especially resembles some of the Megapodes in colour. It is, moreover, furnished with feet of large size, which again remind us of the Mound-builders. There can, however, be no doubt that the Menura is a Passerine Bird, and not a Game-bird at all. There are three kinds of Lyre-bird, the common species, M. superba, Queen Victoria's Lyre-bird (M. victories}, and Prince Albert's Lyre-bird (M. alberti], all of them occupying different districts of the Australian continent, and each having its peculiar distri- bution. Owing to the beauty of the species and the interest attaching to them, the birds have been much shot down of late years, and in some places are in danger of extinction. Full-plumaged males are very rare in collections, as it takes four years before they gain their complete livery, and even then the beautiful tail is moulted after a very short time. The Lyre-birds, on account of their wonderful tail, must be reckoned among the most fantastically ornamented birds in the world, and no other bird quite equals them for peculiar decoration. The filamentous character of the long feathers is produced in the usual way, viz. by the absence of barbules or booklets, and the barbs, which constitute the chief part of the web of a feather, are situated at about a quarter of an inch from one another, so that there is a very wide interval between them, and this imparts a hair-like appearance. In this same way the light feathery plumes of the Birds of Paradise can be accounted for, as they show the same filmy character as does the Lyre-bird's tail. Notwithstanding the solid aspect of the broad outer feathers in the latter, their structure is one of the most wonderful of any bird. The outer web is very narrow, and the inner web broad and of a chestnut colour. At regular intervals appear to be notches of light pattern, but on closer examination it will be seen that these are not real notches, but are intervals in the feather where there are no barbules, so that these interspaces look more or less transparent. The Lyre-bird 77 When proceeding through the brush-wood the male Lyre-bird carries his tail horizontally, but on his playing- ground it is erected and displayed to its fullest capacity. The dancing-ground is a small round hillock, according to Gould, on which the male is constantly trampling, at the same time erecting and spreading his tail in the most graceful manner, sometimes pouring out his own natural notes, at others mocking those of other birds, and even the howling of the Dingo. The nest is a domed structure, and not unlike that of a gigantic Wren's nest. The nestling is an extraordinary little creature for a young Passerine bird, for it is covered with dense fluffy down, like that of a Storm-Petrel. No other Perching Bird has such a nestling, and that alone is sufficient to show that, independently of their wonderful tail-ornament, the Lyre-birds have other peculiarities which justify their being placed in a separate Order of Birds, Menura. Queen Victoria's Lyre-bird is said to construct a nest in every way recalling that of our European Dipper, which makes not only a real nest but an outer structure as well. It builds a small nest of strong fine roots, lined with feathers, and about five inches high and ten inches in diameter. The outer covering is composed of sticks, grass, and moss and leaves, and forms a projection over the genuine nest, the opening of which is in the side, and Dr. Becker says that the female always enters back- wards, with her tail laid over her back, and with watchful eye and ear, keeps her head in the direction of the opening. A nestling is described by the same observer, as still covered with down, though it was a bird of more than a foot in length, and had feet nearly as big as those of its parent. It is evident that the young Lyre-birds must remain in the nest for a considerable time in a helpless condition, as the specimen in question lived with Dr. Becker for eight days, during most of which time it slept in a nest of moss, and became quite tame, accepting all 78 Wonders of the Bird World kinds of food, but as to its walking, Dr. Becker says — " When it rose, it did so with difficulty, the wings assisting. Once on its legs, it ran sometimes, often falling down, however, in consequence of the want of strength to move properly the large and heavy bones of its legs." When adult, however, the Lyre-birds have immense strength in their legs, and have been known to jump from the ground to a branch of a tree fully ten feet off, and then bound by similar leaps to the other branches. Prince Albert's Lyre-bird is said to be superior in voice and power of imitation to the common species, and Mr. A. A. Leycester, in his account of the bird on the Richmond River in New South Wales, states that " one of these birds had taken up its quarters within two hundred yards of a sawyer's hut, and he had made himself perfect in all the noises of the sawyer's homestead — the crowing of the cocks, the cackling of the hens, the barking and howling of the dogs, and even the painful screeching of the sharpening or filing of the saw." Like many other birds of beautiful decoration, the Lyre-bird has its playing-ground in which to disport, and each pair of birds appears to have its own particular district, and does not encroach upon that of its neighbours. I have already alluded to the playing-ground of Memira superba, and the manoeuvres of M. alberti would seem to be very similar, except that its song is finer than in the other species, just as it is also a better mimic. Mr. Leycester has watched these birds performing, and says that, when singing, they spread their tails over their head like a Peacock, and droop their wings to the ground, and at the same time scratch and peck up the earth. Although in the case of many species which have rackets or wire-like feathers, we are ignorant as to the fact whether the birds assist in trimming them with their bill, with the Motmots (Momotns) the case is different, for here we know that the birds do actually trim their centre tail- The Motmot 79 feathers so as to make them form a racket at the end. This has been shown to be the case by Mr. Osbert Salvin, who instances that of a young Motmot imbued with the A Motmot at work hereditary instinct that it had to nibble the web away from its longest tail-feathers, but was evidently puzzled to find the right one, as at first all the tail-feathers are of the same length. Thus it had nibbled at one feather after the other 80 Wonders of the Bird World and chipped pieces out of them, until at last the centre feathers extended beyond the others, and on these the bird finally commenced to form its racket. How glad it must have been when the two centre tail-feathers began to extend beyond the others, so that it knew exactly on which it had to work ! Motmots are inhabitants of the Neotropical region, that is to say, the whole of Central America south of the plateau of Mexico, and the entire continent of South America. Throughout the greater part of this region Motmots are found, excepting the extreme south. They are Picarian birds, allied to the Kingfishers, and have a saw-like edge to the bill, which may be of use to the young bird in its first moult, when the necessity of trimming its central tail-feathers first impresses itself on its mind. In habits the Motmots are rather sluggish, and they might be weli called " Pendulum Birds," from the way in which they sit at rest on a bough, swaying their tail back- wards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock. They make their nest, like a Kingfisher, in the hole of a bank, tunnelling to a distance of from six to nine feet, and de- positing their four white eggs in a chamber where a few dry sticks constitute the so-called "nest." One of the most interesting examples of the assumption of decoration during the breeding season is seen in the Puffin (Fratercula arctica) of the British coasts. This is one of the Auks (Alcidce\ and belongs to the same family as the Great Auk (Plautus impennis], which, owing to its inability to fly, its feeble wings being insufficient to carry its large body through the air, has become extinct during the present century. The Puffin, on the other hand, is a bird of strong powers of flight, and is often to be seen far out at sea, like the Guillemots, Razorbills, and other members of the family of Auks. Our common Puffin has the remarkable habit of moulting certain portions of its bill. The latter in summer is grey, crossed with bands of The Puffin yellow, and with the tip carmine. There is an orange wattle at the corner of the mouth, and above and below the eye is a grey horny wart or protuberance. These wattles are shed, as also is a large por- tion of the brightly- coloured bill, these parts being renewed in the following summer. A similar phenomenon is seen in the American Knob-billed Pelican (Pelecanus trachy- rhynchus), which, during the breeding season, has a horny excrescence on its bill which after- wards falls off. The phenomenon of a bird assuming ornamental features on its face during the breeding season, and then moulting them like ordinary birds moult their feathers when the season comes for their change of plu- mage, is certainly a wonderful one. The method by which birds assume their different phases of colouration has as yet not been suffici- ently studied, but the most frequent mode of change is A Puffin in the nesting season, showing the facial ornamentation afterwards shed. 82 Wonders of the Bird World undoubtedly by a complete moult. Most of the species we are familiar with as summer visitors moult their feathers before undertaking their autumn migration, and in nearly every case they cast their old feathers and go south with perfectly renewed plumage. The young birds, though they may be thickly spotted and differ from the adults in this respect, as, for instance, does our Common Fly catcher (Musci- capa grisola), leave us in a full dress indistinguishable from that of the parent bird. The young of the Warblers, such as the Willow- Warbler, Chiffchaff, Great Sedge-Warbler and others, can only be distinguished from the old birds in their winter habitats by showing a little more yellow tinge on the under surface, and even this is not observable in the following spring, when young and old return in perfectly full plumage. This is, however, because the Warblers have a spring moult also, and, before they return to their northern breeding-haunts, they cast all the feathers with which they departed, and return to us in the freshest of new plumage. This is certainly true of our familiar migrants, and Thrushes (Turdida) can be dis- tinguished from Warblers (Sylviida) by the fact of their having spotted young, and by their having only an autumn moult, and not a spring moult as well. Thus our Robin and Nightingale are Thrushes and not Warblers, as they have so often been called. An ordinary species, like our Song-Thrush ( Turdus musicus), begins its life with a spotted plumage, and then moults in its first autumn to a dress so like that of the old birds, that it is only by the indication of small spots on the tips of the wing-coverts that it can be determined as a bird of the year. The Swallows, however, do not moult in the autumn like other migrants, but leave Europe in the same plumage in which they arrived in the previous spring, while the young birds go south in the feathering they acquire before leaving the nest. Thus the old birds depart in a very ragged Moulting of Birds 83 costume, worn and battered with long service in the nesting and bringing up of the young, and by the time that they have effected their retreat to their winter home in Africa, they are scarcely recognizable as the brilliant little birds which come to us in the spring. The blue plumage is worn and bleached to a dull brown, the red on the forehead and throat become white, and the flight-feathers and those of the tail are worn out and jagged. Some specimens killed in the late autumn in England, show here and there a feather in process of renewal by moult, but as a rule all the Swallows commence their moult in December, when they are far from Europe, and it is not until February that they have gained their new and beautiful plumage, when they at once begin their journey northward. Many birds seem to be always more or less in moult, notably Gulls and Birds of Prey, and it is interesting to see that complete correspondence in the shedding of the wing-feathers takes place, so that if the sixth primary is being renewed on one wing, it will be found that the same primary is also in process of renewal on the other wing. But besides this regularity of moulting as the means of the renewal of plumage, there are certain exceptions to the general rule that all feathers are renewed by an absolute casting of the plume. Take, for instance, Redstarts, Buntings, and some of the Finches — there being no better example than our House-Sparrow (Passer domesticiis) of a change of plumage without moult. In the autumn after the Cock Sparrow has renewed his feathers and put on his winter dress, he presents a much duller and browner appearance than he does in the perky plumage of the summer. The grey head appears brown, of the black throat there is no trace, ex cepting perhaps on the chin, and yet our little friend will put on his perfect dress in the following spring without casting a single feather. The light edgings to the plumes, which hide the grey colour of the head and the black of 84 Wonders of the Bird World the throat, become abraded as spring approaches, and the tips are gradually shed, so that -the underlying colours come to the fore, and the black feathers which we see on the throat of the Sparrow are the identical ones which were acquired by moult in the preceding autumn, and which throughout the winter have appeared to be brown or grey, owing to the light edgings with which the summer plumage has been overlaid. The same takes place in the Buntings and other birds, for in the Snow Bunting (Plectrophenax nivalis) and the Reed Bunting (Embertza schcenidus) any one can prove the truth of this phenomenon, by lifting the feathers of the winter plumage, when the summer plumage will be found concealed by the lighter edgings of the former period, and the basal portion of the feathers will be found to represent the forthcoming summer dress, which will be completed when the light margins of the plumes shall have been shed. This fact can be studied by any one who examines a Cock Sparrow killed in winter. The Black Redstart (Ruticilla iitys} and the Pied Flycatcher (Ficedala atricapilla) are likewise birds which have their summer plumage obscured by pale margins to the feathers in winter, and these birds have been known, when in con- finement, to attain their full summer plumage without the shedding of a feather, and merely by the abrasion and wearing off of the pale margins. The late Professor Taczanowski told me once an extraordinary tale with respect to one of these birds. He said that he could not swear to the truth of it, as it did not occur to himself, but it was vouched for by one of his friends, who was a Polish nobleman and a thorough naturalist, and Taczanowski said that he himself believed the story to be perfectly true and reliable. The naturalist in question shot a Pied Fly- catcher one evening in spring, when the birds were about to nest, but the bird he had killed was in grey plumage still, but with indications of the black dress coming rapidly on. Different Methods of Moulting 85 Not having time to skin the bird the same evening, the hunter put it into a drawer of his dressing-table, and on proceeding to take it out next morning, he was surprised to find that during the night the process of change had continued, and that the bird was nearly black. It is many years since my old friend told me this story, and it seemed so extraordinary that I never liked to put it into print, but in the light of recent conclusions it seems that it may as well be published, as Taczanowski himself never doubted its authenticity. Besides the acquisition of new plumage by the process of moult and by the shedding of the light edges of the feathers in spring, there is yet a third method, viz. by a change in the pattern of the feather, without moult. It is many years since I became convinced of the truth of this phenomenon, and I published my first essay on the subject in 1873, 'On the Changes of Plumage in certain Accipitrine Birds.' l I then endeavoured to show that the change from a striped feather, such as that on the chest of a young Sparrow- Hawk (Accipiter nisus\ to a barred one, could be, and was, effected by the break- ing up of the pattern of the feather, instead of its being shed and renewed. During the twenty-five years that have elapsed since I first put my ideas before the public, I have been more than ever convinced that this phenomenon takes place in many other groups of birds besides the Sparrow- Hawks, though I never could prove how the change of pattern was effected. I could now give numerous instances in which no one can doubt that such a change takes place, however mysterious it may seem that such a thing could be possible. One of the best examples is that of the Australian Rifle-bird (Ptilorliis paradisea), in which the male is velvety black, with a beautiful triangular shield of burnished steel-green extend- 1 'Proceedings of the Zoological Society,' 1873, p. 4'4- 86 Wonders of the Bird World ing over the throat and fore-neck. The female, on the other hand, is a plain ashy-brown bird, with the under surface whitish, transversely barred with black. The young male is at first like the mother bird, but the change to the plumage of the adult male is not entirely accomplished by a moult, but many of the feathers actually change their pattern. Even some of the quills become black by a gradual extension of the latter tint over the brown of the original feather. The bars on the breast of the young male are of a horse-shoe pattern, and these gradually break up into irregular lines, and the feathers begin to darken on their edges, and it is here that the colour ultimately becomes of a velvety green. Mr. Ogilvie-Grant has recorded the same fact with regard to the way in which the female of the Red Grouse (Lagopus scoticus] attains her full dress.1 " In some birds the whole of the alteration of the plumage of the flanks is produced by change of pattern in the old autumn feathers, in others the change is entirely produced by moult, while sometimes both methods are employed by the same in- dividual. In the former case, the first indication of the coming change may be observed in the beginning of November, or even earlier, when many of the flank-feathers show traces of an irregular buff stripe or spot near the terminal half of the shaft. As the bird only changes about half its flank-feathers, these buff marks are only to be observed on such as are destined to undergo alteration of pattern, which, roughly speaking, means every second or third feather. The buff spot gradually enlarges and spreads along the shaft, then becomes constricted at intervals, and broken up into patches which gradually extend laterally towards the margins of the webs, forming wide irregular buff bands. Meanwhile the interspaces become black, and the rufous of autumn dies out. 1 ' Handbook to the Game-birds,' vol. i. p. 32. Change of Plumage without Moult 87 " When the summer feathers are supplied by moult, they usually begin to make their appearance about the beginning of March, and even when fully grown, may generally be recognized from those produced by change of pattern, by their more regular black and buff barring. The change of pattern without a moult appears to take a long time to become complete, for we find that, though autumn feathers, altered in this way, begin to show traces of the coming metamorphosis as early as the beginning of November, the colours are often imperfectly arranged by the end of April. When the summer feathers are supplied entirely by moult, no change whatever is visible till about the end of February, when the first new feathers begin to appear, though we have noted a single instance of a summer feather making its appearance as early as the middle of December. " There can be no doubt that the male Red Grouse com- pletes his autumn moult much more quickly than the female does, many males being in full autumn plumage by the beginning of September. Possibly this may be ac- counted for by the resources of the female being more severely taxed than those of the male during the breeding season. It may very naturally be asked why some females should change their summer flank-feathers by moult, while others are enabled to arrive at the same result by going through the much less exhaustive process of redecorating their old autumnal feathers and making them serve the purpose of new breeding plumage. This is a difficult question to answer, but it seems natural to suppose that the more vigorous birds gain their summer flank-feathers by moult, while Nature has enabled the weaker individuals to obtain the necessary protective nesting plumage by a more gradual and less exhaustive process." The possibility of a change of pattern in feathers without a moult was vigorously denied in England, when I mooted the subject in 1873, and more recently Professor J. A. 88 Wonders of the Bird World Allen of New York wrote a paper in which he ridiculed the ideas on the subject, which had received attention from a number of European naturalists of the highest repute, since the year 1820 and onwards. His memoir is a com- plete resume of all that has been written on the subject, and as to his conclusions, I join issue with him at once. Professor Allen writes — "The perfected feather, though worn for from a few weeks to a year, according to the species and the character of the feather, is in one sense practically a dead organ, inasmuch as it is insusceptible of further growth or repair." As to the replenishing of the barbules of a feather after they have once become lost, Professor Allen is doubtless right, as such a thing would be im- possible. A barbule once lost must be lost for ever, and certainly could not be replaced. In the case of a deficiency in this respect, the only possible renewal of the pattern of a feather would be by a complete moult of the feather in question. It is, therefore, a little surprising that so good an observer as the late Heinrich Gatke could suppose that the Wood-Sandpiper (Rhyacophthis glareola), after having the white notches on the quills worn out by reason of the abrasion of the barbules, could renew the latter, involving a reinstalment of the structural portion of the feather. Gatke was apparently unaware of the spring moult in Wading Birds, and it is certain that the Wood-Sandpipers with worn-out markings of the quills did not replace them by any restoration of the pattern of the old feather, but simply by a complete moult. Professor Allen's criticisms have been challenged by Mr. J. G. Millais in the ' Ibis ' for 1896 (p. 451), whose conclusions agree with those of myself and other European naturalists as to the possibility of a change of pattern in certain species. His proofs are confined to certain Grebes and Wading-birds, but in 1897 Dr. Chadbourne made some valuable experiments on the colouration of feathers in the Bobolink (Dolichonyx Colouration of Feathers 89 oryzirora), and has shown by microscopical examination that the perfect feather of a bird is by no means " dead," as has been 'supposed, but is full of life, and that the "colour change in the individual feather is fact, not theory " (' Auk/ xiv. p. 145). This is the evidence which ornithologists have been waiting for for years, for, although to myself the change of pattern in a feather was an evident fact, I had never the time to follow up the subject, and find out how it was possible for a feather to act in this method of change of pattern, though the fact that it must do so was too frequently forced upon me to admit of any doubt as to the possibility of the phenomenon. CHAPTER IV DECORATION IN BIRDS (continued} The Poise of a Humming-bird (after Ridgway). Humming-birds — Difference in plumage between male and female — The Racket-tailed Humming-bird— Bell-bird — Umbrella-bird— Great Crested Grebe— Standard-winged Nightjar— Huia. AMONG the highly coloured birds of the world the Hummers take a foremost place, for the majority of the species are bedecked with metallic plumes of brilliant tint, while the variety in form and adornment is equalled in no other Order or Family of Birds. The Humming-birds, in fact, stand alone in the class Aves, and have no very close allies. Their flight is of extraordinary rapidity and their power of hovering more than wonderful, so that in many of their actions they resemble the Hawk-moths or Sphynges, 90 Humming-birds 91 being seen here for a second hovering in front of a flower, with wings so quickly vibrating as to be almost invisible to the eye, while in another second they are hovering many yards away. Professor Ridgway, of the United States National Museum, who has written an excellent mono- graphic account of the Humming-birds, thus describes the flight of a member of the Order — " It often towers above the trees, and then shoots off, like a little meteor, at a right angle. At other times it quietly buzzes away among the flowers near the ground. At one moment it is poised over a diminutive weed, at the next it is seen at a distance of forty yards, whither it has vanished with the quickness of thought. During the heat of the day the shady retreats beneath the trees are very often visited : in the morning and evening the sunny banks, the verandahs and other exposed situations are frequently resorted to." At the present time about five hundred species of Humming-birds are known, and though a few of them visit the United States in summer, the bulk of the species are confined to what is called the Neotropical region, which comprises Central and South America. Some of the Humming-birds, such as the members of the genus Phaethornis, are plainly coloured, with the sexes alike, but the majority have brilliant metallic colours confined to the male sex, the females being of much more sober tints. It has been pointed out that this dull colouration is of a distinct advantage for the protection of the eggs, as the nest is built in an exposed position, being generally a little cup-shaped structure of moss or wool, and thus the sitting hen would be a conspicuous object if she carried the flaunting metallic plumage of the male birds. Among the Humming-birds we find the most extraordinary examples of decorative plumage, and the ornaments are of all kinds — metallic crests, backs, throats, breast-shields, etc; but no one of all the Order is more remarkable than the 92 Wonders of the Bird World Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis}. It well deserves its specific name of mirabilis or wonderful, for it is certainly one of the most extraordinary birds in existence. It was first discovered at Chachapoyas in Upper Amazonia, and was described by Gould in 1847, and to conceive of the way in which the majority of the Humming-birds are restricted to a limited area, I may state that Mr. Gould offered a large sum to travellers about to visit South America, if they would bring him back The Racket-tailed Humming-bird (Loddigesia mirabilis). specimens of the Loddigesia, and yet up to the time of his death in 1881 he had never succeeded in obtaining an example of this rare species, which up to that time re- mained unique in the Loddiges collection. In 1880, however, the celebrated Polish traveller Stolzmann revisited the- town of Chachapoyas, whence the original example came from, and succeeded in rediscovering the species. He writes as follows — x " It seems to be restricted to the basin of the Utcubamba, a little river on the right bank of the system of the Maranon, and is only found at an altitude 1 Taczanowski, ' Ornithologie du PtrouJ vol. i. p. 321. Racket-tailed Humming-bird 93 of between 7000 and 9000 feet above sea-level. The country is bare of forest, and it is only in its southern portion that one meets with the Montana of Puma-Urcu, which, so to speak, joins with the forests of Huayabanba, that is, with the principal mass of the forests of Northern Peru. The remainder of the country inhabited by the Loddigesia is covered with cultivated fields, pastures, or brush- wood, and there is a system of small valleys and ravines with a somewhat richer vegetation, and containing here and there groups of large trees, probably the survivors of the ancient forests. The greater part of these areas is covered with almost impenetrable thickets of a thorny plant, called Zarza (Peruvian Strawberry), mixed here and there with alders. It is in these thickets that the Loddigesia dwells, appearing to avoid the large forests bare of the flowers necessary for its subsistence. " A beautiful Alstromeria, with a red flower, seems to be its favourite flower, as one can make sure of finding the Loddigesia wherever this flower is met with. The plant flourishes from the month of August up to the end of November. As this flower is not visited by the Lesbia gracilis, which is the Humming-bird which most persistently persecutes the Loddigesia, the latter feeds at its ease. It loves also to visit the flowers of a sort of spring strawberry and also a certain tree called by the natives Tola, which is apparently a kind of myrtle. The female is likewise observed on the little violet flowers of a species of Pimento called in this part of the country ' Ajil " Nowhere can this Humming-bird be said to be com- mon. On the contrary, it must be considered to be a rare species, and the full-plumaged males are decidedly scarcer than the females and the young males. From morning till evening the birds are in continual motion. Whilst some Humming-birds appear to have their hours of rest, and others abandon themselves to the performance of 94 Wonders of the Bird World a song, one never sees the Loddigesia inactive for any length of time. The females are not so shy as the adult males, and their flight presents no difference from that of other Humming-birds, but it is perfectly wonderful to observe the incredible swiftness and precision with which it passes across the densest thickets, where the bird is obliged to change the direction of its flight many times in a second in order to avoid the obstacles which it encounters at every turn of its course. On .arresting its flight at the calyces of the flowers, the Loddigesia balances its tail in the same way as the long-tailed Lesbia and other Humming-birds. The two lateral tail-feathers of the adult male are so arranged in flight, that the two rackets mutually approach each other. This operation is effected mechanically ; as the tail-feathers are able to turn themselves to a certain point in their basal tube, the slightest opposition in the air suffices to produce a similar position. One can prove this in recently killed specimens. These tail-feathers remain therefore crossed, and the further point of this crossing takes places quite close to the commencement of the rackets. " The humming noise produced by the hen bird in its flight can be easily distinguished, after a slight experience, from that of the long-tailed Lesbia gracilis, its persistent persecutor. It emits a higher note, which is to be explained by its shorter wings. The male, which has even shorter wings than the female, produces a humming in a still higher key, and one can detect the presence of a male bird by its humming alone, without even seeing it. The reunions in which the Loddigesia indulges, constitute one of the most interesting facts in the bird's economy. The observations were made by me at Osmal, where two or three males gathered together, and later at Tamiapampa, where from five to eight immature males, of the same age, used to assemble and carry out their curious manoeuvres. In the Racket-tailed Humming-bird 97 latter locality there was nothing which could apparently attract the birds it was an open plateau, with some scat- tered bushes, which offered a minimum of shade. There were no flowers, and the birds only assembled there to go through their evolutions." Two young males would arrest their flight in the air, vis-ci-vis, with the body suspended in a vertical position, opening their tails, turn and turn about, so that the outer tail-feathers with their rackets formed a straight line perpendicular to the long axis of the bird, as they darted from side to side. Each time that the bird opened its tail, was heard a little dry sound like the snapping noise made by two finger-nails or the sound made in shutting a watch. "My later observations," says Mr. Stolzmann,"made on the Manakins, and the analogy of the stiffening of the secondary quills, induce me to believe that it is the mutual concussion of these stiffened feathers which makes the sound that which one can hear at ten paces' distance. The elongated under tail-coverts rest in their natural position, being independent of the system of the muscles of the rump, which are strongly developed. " The manceuvre lasts for quite twenty seconds. It is ordinarily executed by two young males ; but sometimes, as I have already remarked, a larger number take part in it. One can nearly always hear the voice of a female bird in the neighbourhood. At Tamiapampa ten minutes did not pass but these manoeuvres were repeated, and the birds have their chosen places for the performance. On the plateau mentioned above they had a favourite thicket. At Osmal there were two such, and the birds seldom went through their manoeuvres elsewhere. By concealing oneself quietly in the neighbourhood I could observe them for as long as I wished." Mr. Stolzmann speaks of another evolution still more H 98 Wonders of the Bird World out of the common. A young male would rest suspended underneath a thin branch, whilst another would perform above him, spreading its tail and clicking. They would change their position in the twinkling of an eye, when the second bird would hang under the branch, and the other would take its turn in the air above it. " It would be curious," says the naturalist above-mentioned, " to know the object of such evolutions. Can it be a kind of exercise, or a form of rivalry ? If it could be for either of these reasons, how comes it that the adult males so seldom appear to take part in the performance, though they pass by very often ? Only once have I seen an old male arrest his flight in front of a young one." The adult birds in showing off their tail would sometimes give an extraordinary position to the outer tail-feathers, so that the two rackets would range themselves above the bird's head. This unique movement of the tail observed by Stolzmann would be represented by the raising of the tail on high, the rackets thus covering the head, while the body of the bird is constricted in front. It is often more easy to observe the rackets than the bird itself, and thus a man often fails to shoot it if it turns towards the hunter, as its varied breast is easily confounded with the neighbouring objects. When the bird is flying in the shade the rackets are also easy to distinguish. Stolzmann has seen one of these Humming-birds drinking the water of a brook, in which it had sought out a little cascade, and one can well understand that it is only in such a manner that it can assuage its thirst. Such tiny cascades abound all over the country inhabited by the Loddigesia. It was just before sunset, and he observed the bird at a distance of three paces. The note of the adult male is not known, but the young males and the females utter a cry tsi-tsi-tsi ! rapidly repeated. It is heard when the birds visit flowers or dur- ing their manoeuvres ; when at rest, they utter no sound. Racket-tailed Humming-bird 99 In November a female was seen collecting moss for its nest, and this was the season of the manoeuvres. That the wonderful tail of Loddigesia mirabilis is nothing more than ornamentation, cannot be doubted, and it is equally certain that the rackets are rather a hindrance to the bird's flight, and not an assistance, as was supposed by Gould. The tail is wonderfully formed, for in the females and young males ten tail-feathers are present, as in the majority of Humming-birds, but the adult male has only four. The two central ones are very tiny and scarcely visible, while the other pair are developed into wire-like plumes, with the large racket at the end ; these cross each other twice. The long-pointed feathers which we see in the picture of the Lod- digesia are not really tail-feather§, but are under tail-coverts developed to an inordinate length. Mr. O. T. Baron, who was at Chachapoyas in 1895, occupied the same Hacienda that Mr. Stolzmann had lived in, but it was now in ruins, so that he had to pitch a tent, the spot selected for which was near a thick bush in full flower. " Hardly was the tent up," says Mr. Baron, " when I heard the familiar sound of the wings of Loddigesia mirabilis. Immediately other arrangements were left and my gun seized. I saw a beautiful Loddigesia in the bush, too near to shoot. The thought came over me to save the bird for observation, for which I have never been sorry, though I may have lost a very fine specimen by doing so, " Shortly after, a female bird arrived and settled upon a small limb. Immediately the male bird discontinued feed- ing and flew towards the female, the tail so spread that the spatules were protruded in front of his bill. In this position it hovered for a short time, when a young male appeared on the scene. The adult male discontinued his perform- ance and sat upon a little branch. The young one hovered before it, flying from side to side for about ten inches, and flipping its two long tail-feathers at every extreme of its ioo Wonders of the Bird World course, producing a sound as if two fine leather belts were flapped together. The old male soon tired of the perform- ance, forced the young one to sit down, and then performed himself in the same way, but he flipped the spatules together above, instead of beloiv, the tail as the young one did. At times the adult male would also fly before the female from side to side, making a noise with the spatules that could be heard thirty yards away. If the young one returned alone, he would attack a dry leaf furiously, peck at it, and flap the tail for many minutes at a time. " Once two young birds met, attacking each other. The sitting bird would watch the flying one, moving its head from side to side, and then suddenly slip off the branch into a hanging position. The flying bird would still attack it ; yet the hanging one, though imitating death, had its eyes open." x Although Humming-birds have no actual song, as we understand it, yet they produce extraordinary noises with the wings during the nesting time, which are supposed by those who have heard them to correspond with the love- notes of other birds during the breeding season. Thus Mr. Kershaw, writing of the Broad-tailed Humming-bird (Selasphorus platycercus], observes — " During the mating, and perhaps also through the entire breeding season, the flight of the male is always accompanied by a curious, loud, metallic, rattling noise, which he is enabled to produce in some way by means of the attenuation of the outer primaries. This is, I think, intentionally made, and is analogous to the love-note of other birds. Though I saw many of these birds in the fall, it was only very rarely that this whistling noise was heard, and then with greatly diminished force." Mr. Ridgway says that he has heard the above-named 1 ' Novitates Zoologicae,' vol. iii. p. 10. Humming-birds 103 species make a shrill, screeching noise, something like that made by a rapidly revolving circular saw when rubbed by a splinter, when the males were driving off any other Humming-bird from the vicinity of their nests. At these times the little aggressor would rise to a considerable height in the air, and descend upon its enemy like a flash of lightning. Irritability and curiosity are the characteristics of the Humming-birds, and sometimes the tiny creatures will hover right in the face of an intruder, and they often show but little shyness with "human beings, though; when kept in confinement, they do not long survive. They fight con- tinually with one another in a wild state, and will even attack birds of far greater bulk than themselves. Of the way in which they hover in flight, Mr. Robert Ridgway, in his essay on the Humming-birds, has given a figure in his account of CalotJiorax lucifer from Mexico, which is here copied (p. 90). In South America we meet with some birds which illustrate what I would call plain or simple decoration, as opposed to the gaudy decoration of the Birds of Paradise and the Humming-birds. Examples of this are seen in the Bell-birds and the Umbrella-birds, as they are called. The common Bell-bird (Chasmorhynchus niveus) is an inhabitant of Guiana, and in addition to its snowy-white plumage, which in itself is beautiful enough, it has also a simple ornamenta- tion in the scantily-feathered horn which is found on the forehead of the male, and is capable of being raised at will when the bird is calling and uttering the clear metallic cry from which it derives its popular name. The female, on the other hand, is of a dull greenish colour. That the horn on the fore part of the crown is actually ornamental and serves no functional purpose, is evident from the fact that the allied species, the Three- wattled Bell-bird from Central America {Chasmorhynchus tricarunculatus'), has three 104 Wonders of the Bird World long caruncles on the head, which are not elevated or moved in any way, and are certainly only ornaments of the male sex. The inflation of the Bell-bird's wattle is effected through the palate, and is apparently managed in somewhat the same way as the distension of the male Bustard's pouch, which opens under the tongue (see p. 247). Waterton says that the note of the Bell-bird is loud and clear, like the sound of a bell, and may be heard at a distance of three miles. After a toll has been uttered by the bird, there comes a pause, then another toll, and then another pause. Then perhaps will follow a silence for some six or eight minutes, and then tolling commences again. The Trinidad species (CkasmorhyncJms variegatiis] is said to have a note like that of a cracked bell, but that of the Brazilian Bell-bird (C. nudicollis) has a remarkable resemblance to the striking of a hammer on an anvil, as I have heard myself in the case of individuals in confinement. Prince Max of Neu-Wied, who travelled in Brazil in the early part of the century, and who was one of the best field-observers that ever lived, tells us that the species is named by the Portuguese " Ferreiro," or " Blacksmith," and when several birds are calling to each other at the same time, the effect is quite remarkable, as the birds utter their note with an interval of about a second between each. When giving vent to its extraordinary note, the bird accompanies the latter by a jerk of its tail. Another instance of simple but effective ornamentation is seen in the Umbrella-birds of South America. Like the foregoing species, these wonderful birds belong to the Family of Chatterers (Cotingidcs\ which is exclusively American. There are three species, the Amazonian Um- brella-bird (Cephalopterus ornatus], inhabiting Amazonia, and ranging from Bolivia to Ecuador, Colombia, and Guiana, being replaced in Western Ecuador by C.penduliger, and in Veragua and Costa Rica by C. glabricollis, which Great Crested Grebe (Podicifies cristatus). (From specimens in the Natural History Museum.) The Umbrella-bird 107 differs from the others in having the whole of the throat naked and of a red colour, as well as the caruncle which proceeds from the throat. In the Amazonian Umbrella- bird and its ally from Western Ecuador, this long caruncle is densely feathered, and forms a kind of dew-lap. The " Umbrella " consists of a sort of hood formed by the feathers of the forehead and crown, which are long, and curve over at the ends. All the species have a peculiar and far-sounding cry, and are all inhabitants of forest- country, from the depths of which their note resounds. When uttering this note, the bird spreads its crest, waves its pendent neck-lappet, and bows its head as it pipes. There is not so much difference in the colour of the sexes in the genus Cephalopterus, the female being only slightly duller in colour, and having the crest and dew-lap much less developed. In certain forms of birds, however, we find that the sexes are alike in colour of plumage, and even in decoration. One of the most striking examples of this phenomenon, which is extremely rare in the Class Aves, is exhibited by the Grebes {Padicipediela). Even in our familiar little Dabchick (Podicipes fluviatilis), both male and female put on the same plumage in summer, and from the silvery breast and brown upper surface of the winter dress, they become black above and below in summer, and show a considerable amount of chestnut on the sides of the head and neck. The young of the Grebes are also peculiar, and are streaked with black and white like little Zebras. One of the most curious instances of assimilation in ornamental decoration of the sexes of a bird is exhibited by the Great Crested Grebe (Podicipes cristatus). Here the two birds are coloured alike, the tippet assumed during the breeding season being donned by both male and female, so that there is practically no difference in colour between the sexes, except that the head-dress of the female is not quite io8 Wonders of the Bird World so large as that of her mate. This is quite an exceptional occurrence among birds, as the male is usually so much more brilliantly coloured than the female ; .where any difference exists in the colour of the sexes, and certainly among Water-birds, wherever there is divergence in the plumage of male and female, the beauty of the former is very marked. This is especially the case with Ducks, where the male is much more brilliantly coloured than the hen bird. In Geese and Swans, however, as well as in Penguins, Auks, Gulls, Petrels, and Divers, the sexes are almost exactly alike, and few of these birds exhibit any particular ornamentation, such as I have alluded to above in the case of the Great Crested Grebes. Here both male and female have the snowy white breast so much in demand among ladies for jacket-trimming and for muffs, and in summer they put on ornamental tippets in both sexes. This species is becoming much more common in England of late years, as protection has been afforded to it, and it is a great ornament to our inland waters. Quite recently a pair of these handsome birds have taken up their abode on the lake in Wimbledon Park, and have successfully reared their young. The latter have a pretty striped plumage, and show also a bare patch of bright red on the crown, which is not seen in the adult birds, so that in the Great Crested Grebe we have an ornament in the young individuals which is not continued when the bird becomes adult. The nest which this species makes is a flat one 01 rushes and water plants, and it is generally easy of dis- covery, as it is built out in the lake on the edges of the standing reeds, and the eggs can be seen from some distance, as the nest is nearly level with the water. I have found several such nests on the Norfolk Broads in places where they are preserved, but in certain localities they are found in colonies during the breeding season, and nest in dense reed-beds. Grebes have a curious habit of covering The Standard-winged Nightjar in the eggs on leaving the nest, so that these are often quite concealed, I have found many nests of the Little Grebe (Podicipes fluviatilis) which looked like a mass of decayed and rotting water-plants, and have been somewhat sur- prised on disturbing the covering to find a number of eggs underneath. The eggs, which are at first white, soon become stained by their surroundings, and in many in- stances are even quite cold, so that it would not appear that they are covered up by the birds for the sake of being hatched out by the fermentation of the decayed water- plants, as has been supposed. In the case of the Great Crested Grebe, Seebohm distinctly states that he found the eggs> where the complement was complete, covered up with damp moss and quite warm, whereas those nests which had only one or two eggs were uncovered and the eggs cold. It is of course during the breeding season that the decorative faculty in birds is displayed to the utmost, and every bird that possesses any striking or fantastic orna- ments displays them for the attraction of his mate. This is especially the case with Game-birds, some of the Pheasants making a great exhibition of their beautiful colours at the season of nesting, but perhaps one of the most interesting assumptions of nuptial ornament is to be seen in two African Nightjars. In South America the most fantastic of the family Caprimulgida is the Fork-tailed Nightjar of Brazil (Hydropsalis lyra\ which has an extravagantly long forked tail. In Africa the wings of two of the Nightjars show an extraordinary development. Thus the Standard- winged Nightjar (Cosmetornis vexillarius) of the Zambesi is remarkable for the elongation of the seventh and eighth primaries, while the ninth is developed into a streamer, which floats to a distance of nearly two feet behind the bird. It is also found on the West Coast of Africa in the Niger region, and on the waters and 112 Wonders of the Bird World lakes of Nyasaland. The birds appear to be strictly crepuscular in their habits, and resemble other Nightjars in this respect, as they do not fly in the daytime ; but Sir John Kirk mentions, as an extraordinary experience with the Standard-wing, that he has seen the males come off in flocks of about fifteen, and fly over the surface of the Nyasa Lake, when a sudden storm has come on and raised a surf sufficient to prevent his boat from landing. The other remarkable species is the Pennant-winged Nightjar {Macrodipteryx longipennis), which is noticed on p. 277. Not very often in the class of Birds do we meet with structural differences between the two sexes, such variation as is exhibited being mostly one of colour, and not of form. In New Zealand, however, we have a wonderful instance of the difference of form in the male and female Huia, or Wattled Starling (Heteralwha aculirostris], where the male has a stout conical bill, and the female has a long curved one. In colour the two sexes are exactly alike, being glossy black all over, with a broad white band at the end of the tail, while a large orange wattle is present on each side of the gape, but the difference in the shape of the bill is extraordinary, as will be seen by the figures in the accompanying picture. And there is, moreover, a use for these two divergently shaped bills, for, according to Sir Walter Buller, the food of the Huia consists principally of the Hu-hu grub, which is " the larva of a large nocturnal beetle, and infests all decayed timber, attaining at maturity to the size of a man's little finger. Like all grubs of its kind, it is furnished with a horned head and horny mandibles." On offering one of these to the Huia, the bird would seize it in the middle, and at once transfer it to its perch, and then placing one foot firmly upon the grub, he would tear off the hard parts, and then throwing the creature The Huia (Heteralocha acutirostris). The Huia 115 upwards to secure it lengthwise in his bill, would swallow it whole. Two birds which were captured for Sir Walter Buller by a native, were kept by him in confinement, and he says that they were most interesting pets, and used to caress each other with their ivory-white bills, and throw themselves into a variety of attitudes. By placing a tree- trunk in their cage he was able to watch their habits closely, and to discover the use of the differently shaped bills in the male and female. After probing the log pro- vided for them, which contained numbers of Hu-hu grubs, the birds would attack any part where the wood seemed soft and rotten ; then commenced the work of the male, who would use his strong bill like a Woodpecker's, and chisel out the soft wood till the grub was exposed to view, when the female would insert her more slender curved bill and drag it out. In its native wilds in New Zealand the Huia is nowhere a common bird, and inhabits but a very limited area of forest country, but now that it is protected by Government, there may be some chance of this wonder- ful bird not becoming extinct, as has been feared by many naturalists. There can be little doubt that the Huia is a Forest-Starling, and is allied to the extinct Fregilupus of Reunion. An extraordinary instance of decoration was recently shown me in an unfledged nestling of the Gouldian Weaver-Finch (Poephila gouldice} from Australia. Dr. A. G. Butler had received the specimen in question from Mr. H. St. Quintin, in whose aviary it had been bred, and I never saw a more wonderful little object. It was still quite blind and entirely bare of feathers, but besides some bars on the tongue and palate, there were three bright little rounded warts, like beads, at the angle of the mouth. Two were emerald green and one blue, and they all had a pearly or opalescent lustre. One naturally inquires what can possibly be the object of such brilliant decoration in a blind and ii6 Wonders of the Bird World helpless nestling, for the ornament can appeal to no one but the little bird's own parents. Another instance in which a young bird has a coloured wattle at the gape, which disappears in the adult, is that of the Red-tailed Weaver-Finch (Erythrura cyanovirens) of Samoa. The palate. The bead-like wattles on the gape. Ornamental markings in the nestling of the Gouldian Weaver-Finch (from the specimen bred by Mr. H. St. Quintin, and described by Dr. A. G. Butler in the ' Avicultural Magazine ' for November 1898;. CHAPTER V THE PLAYING-GROUNDS OF BIRDS Satin Bower-bird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus). The meeting-places of the Birds of Paradise — The drawing-room of the Argus Pheasant — The assemblies of the Cocks x>f the Rock — Bower-builders — Gardeners. THE consideration of the ornamental plumage of birds led me to speak of the Lyre-birds, where I mentioned for the first time a " playing-ground." This phenomenon, how- ever, is not altogether so rare among birds as one might have believed, and there are many species which have their place for showing off, nor are they always birds of brilliant appearance or decoration, for the instinct is strongest perhaps in the Bower-birds {Ptilonorhynchid(B\ which are none of them very brightly dressed. Many of the Birds of 117 n8 Wonders of the Bird World Paradise have meeting-places, where the males show off their splendid plumage. A tree is selected by them as a dancing-ground, and sometimes as many as twenty adult males will assemble and go through various manoeuvres, flying from branch to branch in a state of great excitement, and quivering their beautiful long flank-feathers of red or yellow. Of the Red Bird of Paradise of South-eastern New Guinea, Paradisea raggiana, the following account of an assembly has been given by Messrs. Chalmers and Wyatt — " One morning we had camped on a space of the Owen Stanley Range, and being up early, to enjoy the cool atmosphere, we saw on one of the clumps of trees close by six Birds of Paradise, four cocks and two hens. The latter were sitting quietly on a branch, and the four cocks, dressed in their very best, their ruffs of green and yellow standing out, giving them a handsome appearance about the head and neck, their long flowing plumes so arranged that every feather seemed combed out, and the long wires stretched well out behind, were dancing in a circle round them. It was an interesting sight. First one and then another would advance a little nearer to a hen, and she, coquette-like, would retire a little, pretending not to care for any advances. A shot was fired, contrary to our expressed wish; there was a strange commotion, and two of the cocks flew away, but the others and the hens remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance began and continued long. As we had strictly forbidden any more shooting, all fear was gone ; and so, after a rest, the males came a little nearer to the dark brown and cer- tainly not pretty hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end all six birds flew away." Many Game-birds also have their playing-places, and this is particularly the case with the great Argus Pheasant (Argusianus argns}. This remarkable bird is an inhabitant The Argus Pheasant 119 of the Malay Peninsula, Siam, and Southern Tenasserim, as well as the island of Sumatra, but in Borneo a smaller species (A. grayf}} lives, and in Tonquin a different kind is found, belonging to another genus, Reinhardtus, which has not the secondary quills developed to such an extent as in the common species. The Argus Pheasant of the Malay countries is one of the most splendid birds in existence, and, like its namesake, has indeed a " hundred eyes." The whole of the outer web of the secondaries, which are more- over of enormous size, is decorated with circular spots of white, yellow, and rufous, surrounded by a ring of black, and it is from these eye-like spots that the bird gets its name. In captivity the Argus often displays his wonderful plumage, much as the Peacock exhibits his train for the admiration of the female, by throwing up his wing and bringing it forward towards the ground, so as to display all the series of spots on the secondaries. The late Mr. William Davison, who explored Tenasserim for years in pursuit of natural history specimens for the great Hume Collection, has given the best and indeed the only account of the habits of the Argus Pheasant with which I am acquainted. One peculiarity about the bird's life is that the males and females live apart, and the latter appear to have no fixed residence, but wander about the forest, only occasionally visiting the male bird in his " drawing-room," as Mr. Davison calls the playing-ground. The hen bird, he was told, builds a rude nest in some dense cane-brake, and lays seven or eight eggs like those of a domestic Turkey, hatch- ing them out and bringing up the nestlings without any assistance from the male bird. The latter in fact appears to be almost wholly devoted to the keeping of the drawing- room in order, and is by no means of a quarrelsome dis- position. In some parts of Tenasserim the Argus Pheasant is quite a common bird, and many males are found in- habiting the same forest district. If a gun be fired, every 120 Wonders of the Bird World one of the birds within hearing begins to call, and on any alarm or excitement, such as a troop of Monkeys passing overhead, they immediately give vent to their note, which sounds like " how-Jiow ! " repeated ten or a dozen times. This note is given out at short intervals when the male is in its clearing, and is answered by every other male in the vicinity. Mr. Davison says that the female has quite a different note, which sounds like " how-owoo, hozv- owoo ! " the last syllable much prolonged, repeated ten or a dozen times, but getting more and more rapid, until it ends in a series of "ouvos" run together. The call-notes of both the male and female Argus travel to an immense distance, that of the former especially being heard at a distance of a mile or more. The " drawing-room " consists of some open level spot, sometimes chosen down in a dark gloomy ravine, entirely surrounded and shut in by dense cane-brakes and rank vegetation ; sometimes on the top of a hill where the jungle is comparatively open, from which the male bird clears everything in the shape of dead leaves or weeds for the space of six or eight yards square, until nothing but the bare earth remains, and thereafter he keeps this place scrupulously clean, carefully removing every dead leaf or twig that may happen to fall on it from the trees above. The food of the Argus consists chiefly of fallen fruit, as well as of ants, slugs, and insects. The birds feed in the early morning, and all come down to the water to drink about ten or eleven a.m., and the males then retire to look after their drawing-room for the rest of the day. Mr. Davison says that in his opinion these cleared spaces are undoubtedly dancing-grounds, but he was never able to catch one of the birds actually dancing in them. The proprietor was always either seated quietly in the clearing or was moving slowly backwards and forwards, calling at short intervals. Except in the hours of feeding or drinking The Argus Pheasant 121 in the morning and evening, the male Argus Pheasants were always to be found at home, and they roost in the trees close to their clearing. They are remarkably shy birds, inhabiting the depths of the dense evergreen forests, and are most difficult of approach, as they dive into the impenetrable thickets on the first suspicion of danger, and never fly if they can escape by running, even when pursued by a dog. Even if the hunter manages to approach the playing-ground so stealthily that only a few yards separate him from the calling bird, the latter has always disappeared when at last he is able to see into the clearing through the dense intervening foliage. It is therefore impossible to shoot the birds, but they are somewhat easily trapped, when once their playing-ground is discovered. Thus Mr. Davison himself used to catch them by build- ing a hedge of cut scrub round the playing-ground, and leaving four openings for the bird to enter by, each furnished with a running noose attached to a bent sapling, but the Malays take advantage of the idiosyncracy of the Argus to keep its clearing scrupulously clean, and act accordingly. " A bit of bamboo, about eighteen or twenty inches long and a quarter of an inch wide, is shaved down till it is of the thickness of writing-paper, the edges being as sharp as a razor. This narrow pliant piece ends in a stout sort of handle at one end, six or eight inches long, which is driven firmly into the ground in the middle of the cleared space. The bird, in trying to remove it, scratches and pecks at it, endeavouring to dig it up, but finding all its efforts vain, it twists the narrow pliant portion several times round its neck and takes hold of the bamboo near the ground with its bill, then giving a sudden spring backwards to try to pull it up. The consequence is that its head is nearly severed from its body by the razor-like edges of the bamboo. " Another method is to erect two small posts, about four feet high and three feet apart, in the clearings, across the 122 Wonders of the Bird World top of which a bar is firmly fastened. Over this bar a string is run, by one end of which a heavy block of wood is suspended just under the bar, while the other end is sus- pended to a peg lightly driven into the ground immediately beneath the block. The bird, commencing as usual to clear away these obstructions, soon manages to pull up the peg and thus release the heavy block of wood, which falls and crushes it." l The Argus sometimes suffers from its lack of pugnacity, and is flaunted on its own hearth by the more aggressive Fire-back Pheasant of Tenasserim (Lophura rufd]. The same excellent field naturalist, whose writings I have quoted above, tells the following story — " I noticed on one occasion a very curious thing. I had stalked an Argus, and while waiting to obtain a good shot, I heard the peculiar note, a sort of chukun, chukun ! followed by the whirring noise made by the male Fire-back, and immediately after saw a fine male bird run in to the open space, and begin to chase the Argus round and round its own clearing. The Argus seemed loth to quit its domain, and yet not willing to fight, but at last, being hard pressed, it ran into the jungle. The Fire-back did not attempt to follow, but took up a position in the middle of the clearing and recommenced the whirring noise with its wings, evidently as a challenge, whereupon the Argus slowly returned, but the moment it got within the cleared space, the Fire-back charged it and drove it back into the jungle, and then, as before, took up its position in the middle of the space, and repeated its challenge. The Argus immediately returned, but only to be again driven back, and this continued at least a dozen times, but how much longer it would have gone on I cannot say, for a movement on my part attracting the birds' attention, they caught sight of me, and instantly disappeared in the jungle "Stray Feathers,' vi. pp. 428, 439 (1828). The Cock of the Rock 125 before I could fire. The Argus never made the slightest attempt to attack the Fire-back, but retreated at once on the slightest movement of the latter towards it, nor did I see the Fire-back strike the Argus with either bill, wings, or spurs." A similar kind of meeting-ground or playing-arena is prepared by other species besides the Game-birds, and one of the Passerine birds which indulges in this amusement is the Cock of the Rock (Rupicola crocea), of Guiana and Amazonia. (See frontispiece.) It must be a curious sight to watch an assembly of these beautiful birds, gathered round to the number of twenty or more, males and females, while some of the males "take the floor." The plumage of the adult is of a bright orange colour with a beautiful curved crest on the crown, while the secondaries are square at the ends and form ornamental plumes. When dancing, the bird droops his wings, waves his crest from side to side, and hops along with most peculiar steps. The late Clarence Buckley, the explorer of Ecuador, told me that he has seen the males of the Blood-red Cock of the Rock (Rupicola sanguinolenta], in a state of frantic excitement, chasing each other through the forest, clinging to the trunks of the trees, and displaying their beautiful plumage to the utmost extent. A third species, R. peruviana, also of a red colour, inhabits Peru, where Stolzmann says that it frequents the forest country from 2000 to 5000 feet, and builds its nest on almost inaccessible rocks, laying two white eggs. He says that it is called by the natives Tungi or Coutsch-pishcou, which means " Bird- Pig." It has the most disagreeable cry of any bird he has ever heard, and the only comparison he can think of is to that of a person being sick. The first time he heard it, he thought it must be the cry of a monkey, and not that of any bird. It is, however, among the Bower-bi that we find the most striking instances of Bird Architecture in the way of playing-grounds and arbours, and it must be 126 Wonders of the Bird World remembered that these are designed only for amusement, and in no way have anything to do with the nesting of the species. The Australian Region certainly presents us with some of the most extraordinary birds in the world, forms which occur there and nowhere else, and one can well understand the enthusiasm of John Gould when he under- took his celebrated expedition to Australia in 1837, to study for himself the birds and mammals of that wonderful Continent. If only for its Mound-builders and Bower- builders the country would be remarkable, but in every group of birds Australia possesses some extraordinary forms which differ from those of other districts of the globe, although some of them extend to the Papuan sub-region. Thus we have the great Frog-mouths (Podargt), representa- tives of our Nightjars, but differing from the latter in their nesting-habits, as they construct a nest of sticks on the branches of trees, instead of laying their eggs on the bare ground. The Giant Kingfishers (Dacelo) likewise belong to the Australian Region, and among Passerine birds we find Diamond-birds (Pardalotus), Crow-shrikes (Strepera), Robin- Flycatchers (Petr