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Show 1882.] MANUCODIA ATRA AND OTHER BIRDS. 349 " Having recently purchased a pair of those elegant birds, the Manucodia gouldi, which had been shot at Cape York by Mr. J. A. Thorpe (now taxidermist to the Sydney Museum), he directed my attention to the peculiar formation of the trachea in them, some of which he has preserved in a dried state and presented to me ; of these I have sent you three, one from a female and two from males. That of the female is much smaller in size than those of the males ; and even in the males the convolutions assume different forms. This formation of the vocal organs enables the male bird to utter a very loud and deep guttural sound, indeed more powerful and sonorous than any one would suppose so small a bird could be capable of producing. Mr. Thorpe states to me that it was a long time before he could believe that so powerful a sound emanated from this bird. No information could be obtained respecting the note of the female, as only that of the male was heard. These birds were found about the same locality as the two fine species of Rifle-birds obtained also at Cape York-Ptilorhis alberti and P. victoria. " Mr. Thorpe gave me some information respecting the habits of these birds as follows :-'During a residence of seventeen months at Cape York in 1867 and 1868 I shot several of the Manucodia gouldi, and took particular notice of their habits. They frequent the dense palm-forests, and are usually seen high up in the trees; they utter a very deep and loud, guttural note, rather prolonged, and unlike that of any other bird with which I am familiar. Their movements are particularly active and graceful; on approaching them they evince more curiosity than timidity, looking down at the slightest noise, and apparently more anxious to obtain a full view of the intruder than for their own safety. They are almost invariably in pairs; and both birds can generally be secured.' " I may remark that, in all the specimens of the convoluted trachea in Manucodia and Phonygama I have seen, the descending limb of the loop in the natural position of the bird is to the left, the ascending to the right. The same peculiarity is observable in all the figures yet published, excepting the original one of Lesson, and in one of those of Pavesi (I. c. ix. p. 64, fig. 4). The reversal, in the first figure, is obviously due to the trachea being represented from the dorsal, instead of the ventral aspect, it being represented as quite separated from the body : Pavesi's figure, representing the parts in situ, does not admit of this explanation, if correctly drawn. As regards the two forms Phonygama and Manucodia, which Mr. Sharpe adopts as genera in the ' Catalogue of Birds,' vol. iii. pp.'180, 182, it is interesting to observe that the validity of the separation is confirmed by what we now know of the tracheal conformation of the two groups in question. Phonygama (as represented by P. keraudreni and gouldi) has the trachea (at least usually) convoluted in both sexes, that of the adult male beino* spirally convoluted several times, whilst that of the female forms a single curve with a loop to the right. Manucodia (in M. •halybeata, ^jobiensis, and atra), on the other hand, has the trachea Convoluted in the male only, the convolution being in the form of a coi |