COLLURICINCLA SELBII: Jard.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
COLLURICINCLA SELBII, Jard.
Selby’s Colluricincla.
Colluricincla Selbii, Jard. in Jard. and Selby’s Ill. Orn., vol. i. note to text of pl. 71.
—— rectirostris, Jard. and Selby’s Ill. Orn., vol. iv. pl. xxxi.
—— strigata, Swains. Anim. in Menag. &c., p. 283, female or young male.
Whistling Dick, of the Colonists of Van Diemen’s Land.
The Colluricincla Selbii is a native of, and a permanent resident in, Van Diemen’s Land and Flinders’ Island, over all parts of which it is very generally, but nowhere very abundantly, distributed; it appears to give a decided preference to the thick woods, wherein its presence may always be detected by its loud, clear, liquid and melodious whistle. It is distinguished from all the other members of the genus by the greater length of the bill, and by the female having a broad stripe of rust-red over the eye. It does not appear to confine itself to any particular part of the forest, for it may sometimes be observed on the low scrub near the ground, and at others on the topmost branches of the highest trees.
It feeds on caterpillars and insects of various kinds, which it often procures by tearing off the bark from the branches of the trees in the most dexterous manner with its powerful bill, and while thus employed frequently pours forth its remarkable note. In disposition it is lively and animated, confident and fearless, and might doubtless be easily tamed, when it would become a most interesting bird for the aviary.
The nest, although composed of coarse materials, is a remarkably neat structure, round, rather deep and cup-shaped, outwardly formed of strips of the rind of the stringy bark-tree and lined with a few grasses; it is about five inches in diameter and four in height, the interior being three inches and a half in breadth by two and a half in depth. The sites usually selected for the nest are the hollow open stump of a tree, a cleft in a rock, &c.