The Bill Is Gamboge Yellow, And The Iris Blackish Olive.
(Figure At P. 353.)
The female of this species is of a tolerably uniform coffee-brown
colour, but has a blackish head, and the nape neck, and shoulders
yellow, indicating the position of the brighter colours of the
male.
The changes of plumage follow the same order of succession
as in the other species, the bright colours of the head and neck
being first developed, then the lengthened filaments of the tail,
and last of all, the red side plumes. I obtained a series of
specimens, illustrating the manner in which the extraordinary
black tail ribands are developed, which is very remarkable. They
first appear as two ordinary feathers, rather shorter than the
rest of the tail; the second stage would no doubt be that shown
in a specimen of Paradisea apoda, in which the feathers are
moderately lengthened, and with the web narrowed in the middle;
the third stage is shown by a specimen which has part of the
midrib bare, and terminated by a spatulate web; in another the
bare midrib is a little dilated and semi-cylindrical, and the
terminal web very small; in a fifth, the perfect black horny
riband is formed, but it bears at its extremity a brown spatulate
web, while in another a portion of the black riband itself bears,
for a portion of its length, a narrow brown web. It is only after
these changes are fully completed that the red side plumes begin
to appear.
The successive stages of development of the colours and plumage
of the Birds of Paradise are very interesting, from the striking
manner in which they accord with the theory of their having been
produced by the simple action of variation, and the cumulative
power of selection by the females, of those male birds which were
more than usually ornamental. Variations of _colour_ are of all
others the most frequent and the most striking, and are most
easily modified and accumulated by man's selection of them. We
should expect, therefore, that the sexual differences of _colour_
would be those most early accumulated and fixed, and would
therefore appear soonest in the young birds; and this is exactly
what occurs in the Paradise Birds. Of all variations in the
_form_ of birds' feathers, none are so frequent as those in the
head and tail. These occur more, or less in every family of
birds, and are easily produced in many domesticated varieties,
while unusual developments of the feathers of the body are rare
in the whole class of birds, and have seldom or never occurred in
domesticated species. In accordance with these facts, we find the
scale-formed plumes of the throat, the crests of the head, and
the long cirrhi of the tail, all fully developed before the
plumes which spring from the side of the body begin to mane their
appearance. If, on the other hand, the male Paradise Birds have
not acquired their distinctive plumage by successive variations,
but have been as they are mow from the moment they first appeared
upon the earth, this succession becomes at the least
unintelligible to us, for we can see no reason why the changes
should not take place simultaneously, or in a reverse order to
that in which they actually occur.
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