A Manual of Philippine Birds

by Richard C. McGregor

Adult.—Above including tail-coverts dark grass-green; head green; forehead blue with a narrow black band along base of bill; lores, sides of face, ear-coverts, and under parts tawny-rufous, paler posteriorly; sides of breast green, washed with blue; sides of body and flanks grass-green; primaries edged with olive-yellow; tail-feathers green at ends; center ones green, washed with orange. “Iris dark brown; bill black; feet flesh-color.” (Whitehead.) Length, 106; wing, 58.

This curiously colored weaver appears to be very rare or, at any rate, to be difficult to collect. Whitehead’s interesting notes on this species follow:

“These small bamboo sparrows are always difficult to obtain; being wary and of swift flight, they disappear in a second when alarmed. Amongst the bamboo-flowers, on which they feed, their movements are very slow and quiet, and it is only after one has found a number of bamboo-clumps in full flower, by carefully hiding and watching the flowers, that any success is obtained. My first specimens were collected in Benguet at an elevation of only 2,000 feet [610 meters], and we next met with the species again at 7,600 feet [2,300 meters] on Monte Data, where a single specimen was secured. In Mindoro I shot a Chlorura [=Reichenowia] in a pine tree close to my camp, and noticed another some days previously feeding at the end of a pine branch; this was at an elevation of 4,500 feet [1,370 meters]. The note, which seems only to be uttered when the bird is on the wing, is ‘tsit, tsit,’ and is a somewhat hissing sound.”

Family ORIOLIDÆ.

Bill as long as head, the terminal half decidedly compressed; culmen slightly curved throughout; gonys straight or slightly curved; a small but distinct notch near tip of bill; nostril oval, exposed, and nearer to cutting edge of mandible than to culmen; rictal bristles short; wing long, covering one-half or more of the tail; primaries ten, the first more than one-half and less than two-thirds of second, the latter shorter than third and equal to sixth; the fourth longest; rectrices well developed, tail slightly rounded.

Genus ORIOLUS Linnæus, 1766.

Characters the same as those given for the family. In the Philippine species the prevailing colors are yellow, black, and gray; the rectrices are black, tipped with yellow in all the species.

Species.

• a¹. Under parts entirely yellow, or yellow streaked with black or olive; throat and chest never black nor gray.
  • b¹. Much larger; wing more than 140 mm.; tail, about 110; under parts uniform yellow (adult), or with black shaft-lines on the breast (young). acrorhynchus (p. [695])
  • b². Much smaller; wing less than 130 mm.; tail, 90 or less.
    • c¹. Lores and chin yellow; bill leaden blue; bill from nostril, about 18 mm. isabellæ (p. [697])
    • c². Lores and chin white; bill dull red; bill from nostril, about 15 mm. albiloris (p. [697])
• a². Under parts yellow on crissum only; throat and chest gray, black, or streaked; abdomen white heavily streaked with black.
  • b¹. Crown and hind neck bright yellow, or greenish yellow, uniform with mantle and back (sexes alike).
    • c¹. Crissum bright yellow; shafts of rectrices light yellow below, inner webs broadly tipped with yellow, the spots 8 mm. or more in length.
      • d¹. Inner webs of wing-quills edged with bright yellow; under wing-coverts bright yellow. samarensis (p. [698])
      • d². Inner webs of wing-quills edged with white, pale gray, or pale yellow, never with bright yellow.
    • c². Crissum dark greenish yellow; rectrices nearly uniform black, very narrowly tipped with yellow, the spots about 2 mm. in length; the shafts white or gray. assimilis (p. [700])
  • b². Crown and hind neck black (male), or black streaked with olive-green (female), in contrast with the yellow mantle and back. xanthonotus (p. [701])