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Show 78 SEXUAL SELECTION: DIRD .. PART II. orange plumes which spring from beneath tho wings of tho Paradisea apoda (see fig. 47 of P. n&l.wa, a much les beautiful species), when vertically erected and ma~lo to vibrate are described as fonning a sort of halo, m the centr~ of which the head " looks like a little " emerald sun with its rays formed by the two plumes." 68 In another most beautiful Rpecies the bead is bald, " and of a rich cobalt blue, cro:::scd by several lines of "black: volvetv feathers." 69 1\ialo hum~ino·-birds (figs. 48 and 49) alm'ost vic with Birds of Pa1~1cliso in their IJeanty, as every one will admit who ha.· seen Mr. Gould's plenclicl volumes or his rich collection. It i very romn.rlmblo in how many different ways these birds are ornamented. Almost every part of tho plumage has been taken ach-a.ntage ?f and modified; and the modifications have been earned, as 1\ir. Gould shewed mr, to a wom1erful extreme in some species belonging ton ar1y every sub-group. Such cases are curiously like those which we sec in our fancy breeds, reared by man for the sake of ornament: certain individuals originally varied in one character, anc:l other individuals belonging to the same species in other characters; and these have been seized on by man and augmented to an extreme point-as the tail of tho fantail-pigeon, the hood of the jacobin, the beak and wattle of the carrier, and so forth. The sole difference between these cases is that in the one the result is due to man's selection, whilst in the other, as with Humming- birds, Birds of Paradise, &c., it is due to sexual selection,-that is to tho selection by the females of the more beautiful males. 6S Quoted from 1\1:. de Lafrcsuo,ye, in ' Annals and 1\f ag. of N11L Uist.' vol. xiii. 1854, p. 157: see nh;o 1\'Tr. Wallnce's much fuller nt .. count in vol. xx. 1857, p. 412, ond in lti:> 1\'lnlny Archipelago. ou Wallace, 'The M.nln.y Archipclngo,' vol. ii. 1869, p. 4.05. CHAP. '<HI. DECORATION. 79 I will mention only one other bird, remarkable from the extreme contrast in colour between the sexes ~amely ~.he famous Bell-bit·d. (Ohasmorhynchus niveus) of S. A1:1enca, the note of whwh can be distinguished at ~he d1sta~c~ of near~y three miles, ~nd astonishes every ne who first hears It. The male IS pure white whilst the fem~le is dusky-green; and the former colo~Ir with 1te rbr'e stn·a l species of moderate size 'a ncl I'nofiie ns.n.e la Its IS very rare. The male, also, as described by W aterton, . has . a spiral tube, nearly three inches in length, wluch nses from the base of the beak. It is jetblack, clotted over with minute downy feathers Th. tt:bc can be inflated with air, through a commu~icatio~ with ~he palate; and when not inflated hangs down on one SI~le. The genus consists of four species, the males of ~vhiCh are very distinct, whilst the females as d - scnbed b Y M I·. S c1 a ter m· a most m. teresting' papere,. ?losely resemble each other, thus offering an excellent mstance of the common rule that within th group the males differ much more from each oth:r ~~~= <lo the. fe~ales: In a second species ( 0. nudicolUs) the male IS likeWise snow-white, with the exception of large sp~ce of ~aked skin on the throat and round th: eyes, winch dunng the breeding-season is of a fine O'reen colour .. _In a third species ( 0. b·icarunculatus) the bhead and nee~" alone of the male are white, the rest of the ?ody b~mg ch~snut-brown, and the male of this species ~s provided WI~h three filamentous projections half as ong as the body-one rising from the base of tho beak and the two others from the corners of the m th 10 The coloured plumage and certain other Ol::m.ents of io 1\Ir. Sclater, 'Intellectual Ob.-ervcr' Jan 18G-, '~,, t t , Wand ·· • 1 8 . ' ' · · • a (1' on s plate ~~t~~~ ,l~bi;' .18~5ce al~Oo 1\.'Ir. Salvin's interesting pa}Jcr, with a ' ' 'p.". |