DIPHYLLODES RESPUBLICA.

Bare-headed Bird of Paradise.

Lophorina respublica, Bp. C. R. 1850, p. 131.

Diphyllodes respublica, Bp. Consp. i. p. 413 (1850).—Sclater, P. Z.S. 1857, p. 6.—Rosenb. J. f. O. 1864, p. 130.—
Elliot, Monogr. Parad. pl. 14. (1873).

Paradisea wilsoni, Cassin, Journ. Acad. N. Sci. Philad. ii. p. 133, pl. 15. (1850).—Gray, P. Z.S. 1861, p. 436.—
Sclater, P. Z.S. 1865, p. 465.—Schl. N. T. D. iii. p. 249 (1866).—Id. Mus. P.-B. Coraces, p. 87
(1867).—Gray, Hand-l. B. ii. p. 16 (1870).

Diphyllodes wilson, Wallace, P. Z. 5. 1862, p. 160.—Newton, Ibis, 1865, p. 343.—Wall. Malay Arch. ii. p. 248
(1869).

Paradisea calva, Schl. N. T. D. ii. p. 1 (1865).

Schlegelia calva, Bernst. N. T. D. iii. p. 4, pl. 7 (1866).

 

Tuts very beautiful Bird of Paradise was simultaneously described in the year 1850 by Prince Bonaparte
in Europe and by the late Mr. Cassin in Philadelphia, but apparently in each case from an imperfect skin.
Certainly the type of P. welsoni in the Philadelphia Museum has not got its proper head, although all the
rest of the body seems to be quite perfect ; and as Prince Bonaparte does not mention the head, which, if
it had been attached to the skin, could not have failed to attract his attention, we may suppose that,
as in Mr. Cassin’s specimen, the head of some other bird had been attached. Indeed the bare cranium is
one of the chief peculiarities of the species—so much so that Dr. Bernstein instituted a new genus
(Schlegelia) for it; but inasmuch as the allied species of Diphyllodes, if not absolutely bare, have the
cranium clothed only with short stubby plumes, I have not deemed the characters sufficient to warrant a
generic separation; this is also Mr. Elliot’s conclusion.

To Dr. Bernstein, however, belongs the credit of discovering the home of this fine species. He found
it in the island of Waigiou; and in the original note published by him, he thus characterized his proposed
Schlegelia calva:— Of the same size and general form as Paradisea speciosa and P. wilsoni; but the upper
part of the head, from the forehead even to the nape, covered with bare skin, broken only by some
transverse rows of little plumes. This bare skin is in the male of a very brilliant cobalt blue, in the female
of a dirty blue, varied with red and with grey. The rows of little plumes, of which we have just spoken,
answer almost to the sutures of the skull in young individuals. The other parts of the head and the chin
are black ; the posterior portion of the neck and the mantle are straw-yellow; the remainder of the back
is of a fine red like that which adorns the plumage of P. regia; the fore neck and pectoral shield are of a
beautiful dark green with metallic reflections ; the breast and belly are black. The distribution of the
colours in the female calls to mind those of the Wryneck (Jyna torguilla), especially on the lower parts.”

In a further communication Dr. Bernstein states that the young male exactly resembles the female, but
shows the velvety black plumes on the throat and lower part of the cheeks which are seen in the adult
male. In the third volume of the ‘Nederlandsch Tijdschrift’ the species is fully described by him, and he
writes in conclusion :—‘ This species, being distinguished from all the other known kinds of Paradise-birds
by its crown aud occiput being for the most part bare, I consider myself entitled to regard it as representing
a new genus. This genus is allied, on account of its two centre tail-feathers being elongated and spirally
twisted, to the genus Diphyllodes of Lesson, by the side of which it is convenient to range ite

‘This bird is found in the island of Waigiou; but it inhabits the parts of the country more or less in
the interior, and is much more rare than Paradisea rubra, which is moreover wet with in the adjacent island
of Gemien.” Afterwards, however, Dr. Bernstein procured the species in the island of Batanta; and ten
specimens of his collecting in these two localities are in the Leiden Museum.

The fieures in the Plate are of the natural size.
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