2G.

DREPANORNIS BRUIJNII, Oustalet.

Bruijn’s Bird of Paradise.

Drepanornis bruijnii, Oustalet, Bull. Assoc. Sci. France, 1880, p. 172.—Id, Ibis, 1881, p. 164.—Salvad. Orn
EapuasiagactCa i. Pp. D593 (1881 ).—Musschenbr. Dagboek, pp. 206, 236 (1883).—Guillem, p Z _
1885, p. 649.—Meyer, Zeitschr. ges. Orn. 1885, p. 382.—Id. Ibis, 1886, p- 249.—Sharpe, in Goula’s
B. New Guinea, i. pl. 12 (1886).—D’Hamonv. Bull. Soc. Zool. France, 1886, pp. 505 Soon
Le Naturaliste, 1887, p. 180.—Id. Ibis, 1889, p. 583.—Salvad. Age. Orn. Papier etc. il. ; 155
(1890).—Oustalet, N. Arch. Mus. Paris, (3) v. p. 295, pl. 6 (1893), |

 

Wuen Count Salvadori wrote his account of the Birds of Paradise in his celebrated work on the Ornithology
of New Guinea, the present species was only known from Dr. Oustalet’s description of a female bird, and fie
distinctness of the species was somewhat questioned by the Count. The specimen described by Dr. Oustalet
was in brown plumage, and was collected by Mr. Bruiju’s hunters in the eastern part of the Bay of
Geelvink in North-western New Guinea. :

Several specimens in brown plumage were subsequently sent to Europe by Mr. Bruijn, some of which were
acquired by Dr. Meyer for the Dresden Museum, and by the British Museum. During the cruise of the
‘Marchesa,’ Dr. Guillemard procured two examples, also in brown plumage, one of which was figured and
described by me in the late Mr. Gould’s ‘ Birds of New Guinea.’

Dr. Guillemard gives the following account of his specimens :—“ While in Ternate Mr. Bruijn showed me
the skins of two birds of the genus Drepanornis obtained by lis hunters on the north coast of New Guinea
a little to the eastward of the mouths of the Amberbaki River. One was marked ‘female,’ the other «male ac
but both were destitute of any brilliant colouring whatsoever ...... Mr. Bruijn informed me that his
hunters had obtained seven or eight examples of this species, but that, though of different’ sexes, they were
all of the same sober colouring. Judging from the habits of others of the Paradiseide, notably in the case
of P. rubra, where the immature males and females appear to live in districts quite apart from the adult male
at certain seasons of the year, and from the fact that in this group of birds the males are all of brilliant
colouring, we can safely predict that the adult male of this species has yet to be discovered, and that it will
probably show a development of subalar plumes closely resembling that of D. a/bertisi.”

By a happy decree of fate, Dr. Oustalet, to whom was due the first discrimination of the species, when
only an example of a female or immature male was at his disposal, has been the first to describe the full
plumage of the adult male. In 1887 he communicated a description to the French Scientific Association,
and he has since given a beautiful figure of the male bird in the ‘Nouvelles Archives’ of the Paris
Museum. ‘This figure shows that the characters of the massive bill and the extension of the bare skin of
the face, which Dr. Oustalet relied on for the distinctive characters of the species, fully justified him in its
separation from D. albertis?. The different disposition of the shields of plumes on the sides of the breast
and flanks also proves that D. oruijnii belongs to a separate genus, for which I have proposed the name of
Drepananax.

The first specimen of an adult male was, according to Dr, Oustalet, acquired by the well-known traveller
M. Léon Laglaize, and was obtained on the north coast of New Guinea opposite the island of Podena,
between Geelvink Bay and Humboldt Bay, at about 141° E. long. Since then several fully plumaged birds
have been received in Europe, and the Hon. Walter Rothschild possesses a good series of the species. He
has kindly lent me an adult male bird, from which I take the following description :—

Adult male. General colour above brown, a little more reddish on the lower back, rump, and upper tail-
coverts ; bastard-wing blackish ; primary-coverts and quills also blackish, externally dull reddish brown, the
innermost secondaries almost entirely of the latter colour; tail dull tawny, dusky brown along the inner web ;
crown of head covered with short velvety plumes of a purplish-bronze colour ; sides of face entirely bare ;
a line of metallic plumes along the sides of the crown, of a dull steel-green ; cheeks and throat os black,
with a slight gloss of bronze or purplish copper; a spot of steel-blue on each side of the middle of the
throat ; fore-neck and lateral pra-pectoral shields of feathers blackish or ae aoa according to ne
light, with an oily-green gloss in the centre of the fore neck, the le shields having a Se row of
feathers which are tipped with fiery metallic copper, while the terminal row are velvety black, with a narrow

: : 2 ope Soe pas ; fr he fore-neck downwards
fringe of metallic steel-blue at the tip ; remainde! of under surface of the body from the s é