EPIMACHUS ASTRAPIOIDES, Roshschita

Green-breasted Sickle-billed Bird of Paradise.

Epimachus astrapioides, Rothschild, Bull. Brit. Orn. Club, vii. p. xxii (1897).

 

Tuts species has been described by the Hon. Walter Rothschild, who has given to it the very appropriate
name of astrapioides. It is certainly wonderfully like an Astrapia in plumage, but is, of course, by reason
of its sickle-shaped bill, a member of the genus Lpimachus.

The steel-green gloss on the wings and tail-feathers is a mark of affinity with EL. speciosus and E. meyer,
and the spangles on the back are also metallic green and not purple as in £. elliot’. Although there is a
slight purplish shade under certain lights in Z. astrapioides, there is nothing like the prevailing purple colour
seen in L. elliott. The present species is entirely different below from the three other species, for it has a
glossy purplish-black throat, followed by a bronzy-red gorget which merges into the coppery-green of the
fore-neck and breast, the abdomen and flank-feathers being more of a grass-green. The long fan-shaped

plumes on the side of the fore-neck are also different from those of EE. speciosus, having a distinct shade of

coppery-purple before the bright steel-blue at the end of these feathers. The crown of the head and the
hind-neck are purple, the latter with a shade of metallic copper and oily-green. Total length about 33 inches,
wing 7°3, tail 23-4, tarsus 2.

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