OCR Text |
Show 298 MR. E. NEWTON ON THE BIRDS OF ANJUAN. [Mar. 20, whose habits I was able to study, having had five or six brought to me alive; but I only managed to keep them for a few days. They are very pugnacious, attacking crows and hawks, and even beating them off. They sing very sweetly and softly, and seem to be able to imitate other birds. They live on grasshoppers. On presenting a large grasshopper at the wires of the cage it is immediately seized by the beak; the bird then grasps it with its foot, and settles on the perch. Then at once the bird makes a jump in the air, and alights with one of the springing legs of the creature free from its grasp; this it tears off, and then repeats the same movement, tearing off the other leg; then, still holding the wings grasped to the body, the bird pulls off the head and swallows it. Afterwards it tears off the wings one by one, making a jump round off the perch, and freeing one wing from its grasp in each jump, as it did with the legs before described. The body i3 then well masticated, and swallowed whole. They generally ate two large locusts at a time. They were not common." Native name " Maremondou." These specimens differ somewhat from those of Madagascar in having more robust beaks and the crest on the head more full; but the differences are so slight that I do not feel justified in describing them as belonging to a distinct species. It is to be remarked that the collection does not contain a specimen of D. waldeni, which was found at Mayotte by M M . Pollen and Van Dam ; and the description which these gentlemen give of the habits of this species is so unlike what has been described of the habits of other birds of this genus, and so like those of the allied genus Tchitrea, that I am almost led to suppose that they must have really described a bird more nearly resembling Tchitrea corvina of the Seychelles. 11. TCHITREA VULPINA, sp. nov. (Plate XXXIII. fig. 2.) T. mutatae (in vestitu rubido) admodum similis, sed colore pallidiore et magis aurantiaco, maculd alari latiore, et caudd breviore et concolori diversa. Long, tota 11, alae 3*1, caudae 7'7, acrotarsi *7, dig. med. sine ungue *4, hallucis sine ungue *3, maxillae a fronte *75, mandibulae ab articulo 1*2 poll. Angl. Six specimens, four male and two female. " A beautiful bird, not common; tail of male much longer than that of female; nest and eggs sent." Native name " Mouchtata." These birds differ considerably from Tchitrea mutata of Madagascar and T. pretiosa of Mayotte. Though they were obtained in the height of the breeding-season, there is no trace among them of the black-and-white form which occurs so frequently in the adult Madagascar species, and the elongated tail-feathers of the male birds are of a uniform cinnamon-colour, and not black and white as they always are in their relations. The cinnamon-colour also is much lighter, the elongated tail-feathers and the wings much shorter than in the Madagascar species; the white on the wings is much more conspicuous, and the edging to the primaries and secondaries more pronounced. Taking these differences into consideration, I have but little hesitation in describing the Anjuan bird as a new species. The |