THE WIRIWA (Colius Senegalensis).
The Wiriwa (Colius Senegalensis) and the White-cheeked Mouse Bird (Colius leucotis) are both inhabitants of Africa. In the first the brow is grey, and adorned with a tuft of brownish-grey hair-like feathers; the back of the head and sides of the neck are reddish yellow, the remaining upper part of the body blueish grey, the throat light grey, the immediate front of the throat and breast greyish blue, clouded with grey; the belly is reddish brown, the beak red at its base and black at the tip; the feet are bright red, as is a bare ring around the brown eye. The plumage of the White-cheeked species is mouse grey; the lower portion of the body is yellowish grey, the throat dark grey, the brow blackish grey, the cheeks greyish yellow. The webs of the tail-feathers are broader than in those of the Wiriwa. The eye is light blue, the upper mandible of a blueish shade, the lower mandible reddish horn colour, and the feet bright red. Both species are alike in size, being about thirteen or thirteen and a half inches long, and from eleven to eleven and a half broad; the wing measures three inches and three-quarters, and the tail about nine inches. These remarkable birds are found exclusively in Central and Southern Africa, though the northern parts of that continent seem equally rich in their favourite trees. Some species appear to inhabit a very limited tract, whilst the range of others extends from the western to the eastern coast, and from sixteen degrees south latitude to the Cape of Good Hope: all frequent well wooded districts, and are as numerous in the fertile steppes as in the primitive forests. Le Vaillant was the first to give any detailed account of the remarkable habits of this group, and so many reliable naturalists have substantiated his statements that we cannot hesitate to give them a place here, though our own observations have not always furnished the same results.
The Mouse Birds, according to the writer we have just mentioned, generally live in small families, numbering about six individuals, and usually select a densely foliaged tree or thick mass of bushes as their gathering place. Only those who have visited Africa, and thus become acquainted with the remarkable characteristics of its luxuriant vegetation, can realise the actual appearance of the haunts thus selected as cities of refuge by these most strange and mouse-like creatures. Our readers must, therefore, try to picture to themselves a gigantic tree, with dense and usually thorny foliage, so interwoven with and embedded in the huge parasitical plants that grow around it as to be nearly concealed from view. In this green mass, which is impenetrable to man and beast, and even impervious to the attacks of the sportsman, the Mouse Birds make their home, creeping, like the animals whose name they bear, through such tiny and invisible crevices as to lead the spectator to imagine that they have actually vanished from his sight, when suddenly a little head appears, and the bird makes its exit through the hole by which it entered. How they manage to creep in and out of such small apertures seems quite inexplicable; Le Vaillant describes their motion whilst accomplishing this curious performance as being extraordinarily rapid. Their flight is performed with wings and tail outspread; whilst in the air the whole party constantly utter their shrill cry, which is accompanied by a very peculiar chirping sound; they but seldom rise to any great height when on the wing, and still more rarely settle upon the ground. Le Vaillant tells us that the Mouse Birds pass the night hanging in clumps upon the branches, like bees upon a hive while swarming. Perreaux, who verifies this statement, mentions having seen them clinging to each other whilst asleep, the first bird holding on to the branch with one foot, while it supports a second bird by entwining one of its legs with its own free limb; this second bird, in like manner, supporting a third, until they form a chain that often contains as many as six or seven of these living links. We ourselves have never succeeded in observing either of these curious habits, but have seen them during their sleep not only with both feet upon the branch, but lying full length upon it with the breast downwards. Whilst climbing among the foliage they will often hang like Titmice from the under part of a twig, but never retain this position for more than a very short time. The Colies are far from shy, and are easily captured if it has once been possible to penetrate their fastnesses—indeed, so little timidity do they exhibit that we have seen them caught with the hand.
Their food appears to be limited to vegetable diet, for we have never found insects in their crops, or, indeed, any substances except buds, fruit, or corn. The fruit of the plant called "Christ's Thorn" affords them their principal subsistence, but they will also devour grapes, limes, and cactus figs, getting at them after the manner of the Titmouse, by climbing over their surface. In Central Africa we heard no complaint of the mischief done to the gardens by the Mouse Birds, but in the Cape of Good Hope, owing to the large numbers in which they occur, the inhabitants regard them as formidable enemies. Nets or similar precautions are perfectly useless to prevent their incursions if they have cast their eyes upon a tempting-looking tree, for, if there be an aperture however small, their lithe, elastic bodies can penetrate it with the utmost ease. The nests, which are described as being of a conical shape, and formed of roots of various kinds, cotton-wool, grass, and leaves, are placed close together upon the most inaccessible branches. The brood consists of from six to seven eggs. Large numbers of the Mouse Birds are shot in the Cape, not only on account of the mischief they do, but for the sake of their juicy flesh.
CATCHERS (Captantes).
Under this head we class not only those members of the feathered race to which has been assigned, par excellence, the name of Birds of Prey, but include with them such families of Swallows and song birds as obtain the principal part of their food by the destruction of animal life. We are fully aware of the difficulties presented by this attempt at a simple and natural classification, which, like many similar efforts, must necessarily be very imperfect, and open to grave objection; but we have adopted it as rendering the general view of our subject more intelligible to the tyro in Ornithology.
All the very various groups we have thus combined under the general name of Catchers are endowed with powerful bodies and comparatively long wings, and, moreover, are remarkable for the velocity and grace of their movements through the air. Their beaks are short, hooked, and frequently rendered more formidable by the possession of a tooth-like appendage to the upper mandible, which fits into a corresponding cavity in the lower portion of the beak; their gape is always large, and often of such great extent as to appear out of proportion to the rest of the body; the crop is but slightly developed or is entirely wanting, and the gizzard a mere capacious bag, provided with strong muscular walls. In all other characteristics presented by the members of this very heterogeneous order so much dissimilarity is observable, that to avoid confusion we must confine ourselves to describing each group in its appointed place.