One Of The
Most Remarkable Of These Is The Twelve-Wired Paradise Bird,
Paradises Alba Of Blumenbach, But Now Placed In The Genus
Seleucides Of Lesson.
This bird is about twelve inches long, of which the compressed
and curved beak occupies two inches.
The colour of the breast and
upper surface appears at first sight nearly black, but a close
examination shows that no part of it is devoid of colour; and by
holding it in various lights, the most rich and glowing tints
become visible. The head, covered with short velvety feathers,
which advance on the chic much further than on the upper part of
the beak, is of a purplish bronze colour; the whole of the back
and shoulders is rich bronzy green, while the closed wings and
tail are of the most brilliant violet purple, all the plumage
having a delicate silky gloss. The mass of feathers which cover
the breast is really almost black, with faint glosses of green
and purple, but their outer edges are margined with glittering
bands of emerald green. The whole lower part of the body is rich
buffy yellow, including the tuft of plumes which spring from the
sides, and extend an inch and a half beyond the tail. When skins
are exposed to the light the yellow fades into dull white, from
which circumstance it derived its specific name. About six of the
innermost of these plumes on each side have the midrib elongated
into slender black wires, which bend at right angles, and curve
somewhat backwards to a length of about ten inches, forming one
of those extraordinary and fantastic ornaments with which this
group of birds abounds. The bill is jet black, and the feet
bright yellow. (See lower figure on the plate at the beginning of
this chapter).
The female, although not quite so plain a bird as in some other
species, presents none of the gay colours or ornamental plumage
of the male. The top of the head and back of the neck are black,
the rest of the upper parts rich reddish brown; while the under
surface is entirely yellowish ashy, somewhat blackish on the
breast, and crossed throughout with narrow blackish wavy bands.
The Seleucides alba is found in the island of Salwatty, and in
the north-western parts of New Guinea, where it frequents
flowering trees, especially sago-palms and pandani, sucking the
flowers, round and beneath which its unusually large and powerful
feet enable it to cling. Its motions are very rapid. It seldom
rests more than a few moments on one tree, after which it flies
straight off, and with great swiftness, to another. It has a loud
shrill cry, to be heard a long way, consisting of "Cah, cah,"
repeated five or six times in a descending scale, and at the last
note it generally flies away. The males are quite solitary in
their habits, although, perhaps, they assemble at pertain times
like the true Paradise Birds. All the specimens shot and opened
by my assistant Mr. Allen, who obtained this fine bird during his
last voyage to New Guinea, had nothing in their stomachs but a
brown sweet liquid, probably the nectar of the flowers on which
they had been feeding. They certainly, however, eat both fruit
and insects, for a specimen which I saw alive on board a Dutch
steamer ate cockroaches and papaya fruit voraciously. This bird
had the curious habit of resting at noon with the bill pointing
vertically upwards. It died on the passage to Batavia, and I
secured the body and formed a skeleton, which shows indisputably
that it is really a Bird of Paradise. The tongue is very long and
extensible, but flat and little fibrous at the end, exactly like
the true Paradiseas.
In the island of Salwatty, the natives search in the forests till
they find the sleeping place of this bird, which they know by
seeing its dung upon the ground. It is generally in a low bushy
tree. At night they climb up the trap, and either shoot the birds
with blunt arrows, or even catch them alive with a cloth. In New
Guinea they are caught by placing snares on the trees frequented
by them, in the same way as the Red Paradise birds are caught in
Waigiou, and which has already been described at page 362.
The great Epimaque, or Long-tailed Paradise Bird (Epimachus
magnus), is another of these wonderful creatures, only known by
the imperfect skins prepared by the
natives. In its dark velvety plumage, glowed with bronze and
purple, it resembles the Seleucides alba, but it bears a
magnificent tail more than two feet long, glossed on the upper
surface with the most intense opalescent blue. Its chief
ornament, however, consists in the group of broad plumes which
spring from the sides of the breast, and which are dilated at the
extremity, and banded with the most vivid metallic blue and
green. The bill is long and curved, and the feet black, and
similar to those of the allied forms. The total length of this
fine bird is between three and four feet.
This splendid bird inhabits the mountains of New Guinea, in the
same district with the Superb and the Six-shafted Paradise Birds,
and I was informed is sometimes found in the ranges near the
coast. I was several times assured by different natives that this
bird makes its nest in a hole under ground, or under rocks,
always choosing a place with two apertures, so that it may enter
at one and go out at the other. This is very unlike what we
should suppose to be the habits of the bird, but it is not easy
to conceive how the story originated if it is not true; and all
travellers know that native accounts of the habits of animals,
however strange they may seem, almost invariably turn out to be
correct.
The Scale-breasted Paradise Bird (Epimachus magnificus of Cuvier)
is now generally placed with the Australian Rifle birds in the
genus Ptiloris.
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