Fig. 122.–Reed Pheasant. Panurus biarmicus. × ½.
This pretty species, which ranges through most of Europe, except Scandinavia and Northern Russia, and reaches Central Asia, may be seen to advantage on the Norfolk Broads, where it is resident, and still breeds in diminished numbers. In windy weather the separate pairs keep hidden, but at other times, though shy, a quiet observer may see them flitting above the reeds, uttering their clear "ping-ping," or clinging to the flowering tops. Insects and small molluscs, with seeds in winter, constitute the food. From April to August a nest of broad grasses, sedges, and the like, lined with reed-flowers, or exceptionally with vegetable-down, is built in aquatic herbage, or rarely in moderately high plants, to contain the round creamy eggs with sparing brownish-black lines and scrawls. These number from four to eight, or even ten, should two hens lay together. The alarm-note is plaintive. Towards autumn the adults and young form large flocks.
Fig. 123.–Golden Oriole. Oriolus galbula. × 3⁄7.
Fam. XXI. Oriolidae.–The Old World Orioles, not to be confounded with the so-called "American Orioles" (Icteridae), inhabit the Palaearctic, Indian, and Australian Regions, reaching eastward to Turkestan, China, and Papuasia. The bill is strong, rather long, straight, and notched, or, in Sphecotheres, curved; the metatarsus is short, the toes are small, the wings are long, the tail is moderate and slightly rounded. Sphecotheres has naked lores and orbits. The Golden Oriole (O. galbula) which breeds exceptionally in England, is orange-yellow, with black lores and mainly black wings and tail; the similar Indian Mango-bird (O. kundoo), has a black post-ocular streak; other species shew black napes or heads. O. viridis and its allies are olive-yellow or brownish, often with dusky streaks, O. steerii being white beneath with broad black stripes; O. cruentus is blue-black, with crimson wing-bar and mid-breast; O. ardens chiefly crimson, with black head and fore-neck; O. trailli maroon, with black head, throat, and wings; O. hosii black, with chestnut under tail-coverts. The bill is crimson, pinkish, or bluish. Sphecotheres is yellow-green or olive-yellow, at times brighter below, and is relieved by black, grey, and white, the orbits being yellowish or flesh-coloured, the bill blackish.
These shy, restless, and quarrelsome birds frequent gardens, groves, and mangrove swamps, avoiding the ground, flying heavily but swiftly from tree to tree, and hopping among the higher branches. They eat insects and fruit; and utter flute-like notes, varied by mewing calls or "churrs" of alarm. The nest is a pocket of bark, grass, and fibres, with the rim woven over two forking twigs–leaves, moss, and hair being occasionally added. The three to five white or salmon-coloured eggs have dark purplish or brown-pink spots, and more rarely streaks; those of Oriolus viridis being more dusky with brown and lilac markings. Sphecotheres maxillaris makes a shallow nest of twigs, and lays three olive or green eggs, blotched or zoned with red-brown.[[290]]
Fam. XXII. Paradiseidae.–The Birds of Paradise have no rivals in splendour, unless it be the Humming-birds, among which, however, there is no such marvellous development of accessory plumes. They are undoubtedly allied to the Corvidae, as is evidenced in particular by Lycocorax and Manucodia, while these also connect the more typical forms with the comparatively plainly garbed Bower-birds, often placed in a separate Family, Ptilorhynchidae. Few species are as large as Crows, and some are not bigger than Thrushes. Whether known to earlier traders or not, the first undoubted account of Birds of Paradise published in Europe was that of Maximilianus Transylvanus (1523), followed by that of Antonio Pigafetta, both relating to a couple of birds brought by Magellan's company from Batchian,[[291]] where they were called Manukdewata, or "Birds of the gods." Natives when preserving the skins used to cut off the wings and the feet, a fact which gave rise to absurd stories of Paradise-birds (Paradisea apoda) never perching, gazing perpetually at the sun (passaros de sol), suspending themselves by the tail-feathers, and so forth. The hen was also said to lay her eggs on the back of her spouse.
Fig. 124.–D'Albertis' Bird of Paradise. Drepanornis albertisi. × ⅖. (From Nature).
The bill is usually short and stout, but is Crow-like in Manucodia and Lycocorax, long and decurved in Ptilorhis, Paryphephorus, Ianthothorax, Seleucides, and Falcinellus, and becomes slender and sickle-shaped in Drepanornis; the maxilla is in some cases notched, and in Scenopoeetes bidentate. The metatarsi are strong and fairly long, the outer and middle toes are slightly united, and the hallux is large. The wings are moderate or short, being especially rounded in Bower-birds; the tail may be enormously elongated and graduated, as in both sexes of Falcinellus, Astrapia, and Paradigalla; less graduated and shorter, as in Drepanornis; of medium length, and square or rounded, as in many forms; or much abbreviated, as in Cicinnurus. Astrapia stephaniae has the two median rectrices concave and decurved over; those feathers in the males of Paradisea, Cicinnurus, Diphyllodes, Schlegelia, Paradisornis, and Uranornis exhibiting more or less wire-like shafts, which terminate in large racquets in Cicinnurus, smaller discs in Paradisornis. They are broader, convex above, wavy, and horny in Uranornis, and are curled outwardly in Diphyllodes and Schlegelia, while they cross each other twice in the last, but once in Cicinnurus. Pteridophora has an extraordinary streamer behind each eye. That these however, are by no means the only remarkable developments, will be seen from the following descriptions of the most striking species, all of which are confined to Papuasia and Australia, except the Moluccan genera Semioptera and Lycocorax. The feathering often extends over part of the bill.