This page has been validated.
Chap. XIII.
Decoration.
389

same species in other characters; and these have been seized on by man and much augmented—as shewn by the tail of the fan-tail-pigeon, the hood of the jacobin, the beak and wattle of the carrier, and so forth. The sole difference between these cases is that in the one, the result is due to man's selection, whilst in the other, as with humming-birds, birds of paradise, &c., it is due to the selection by the females of the more beautiful males.

I will mention only one other bird, remarkable from the extreme contrast in colour between the sexes, namely the famous bell-bird (Chasmorhynchus niveus) of S. America, the note of which can be distinguished at the distance of nearly three miles, and astonishes every one when first hearing it. The male is pure white, whilst the female is dusky-green; and white is a very rare colour in terrestrial species of moderate size and inoffensive habits. The male, also, as described by Waterton, has a spiral tube, nearly three inches in length, which rises from the base of the beak. It is jet-black, dotted over with minute downy feathers. This tube can be inflated with air, through a communication with the palate; and when not inflated hangs down on one side. The genus consists of four species, the males of which are very distinct, whilst the females, as described by Mr. Sclater in a very interesting paper, closely resemble each other, thus offering an excellent instance of the common rule that within the same group the males differ much more from each other than do the females. In a second species (C. nudicollis) the male is likewise snow-white, with the exception of a large space of naked skin on the throat and round the eyes, which during the breeding-season is of a fine green colour. In a third species (C. tricarunculatus) the head and neck alone of the male are white, the rest of the body being chesnut-brown, and the male of this species is provided with three filamentous projections half as long as the body—one rising from the base of the beak, and the two others from the corners of the mouth.[1]

The coloured plumage and certain other ornaments of the adult males are either retained for life, or are periodically renewed during the summer and breeding-season. At this same season the beak and naked skin about the head frequently change colour, as with some herons, ibises, gulls, one of the bell-birds just noticed, &c. In the white ibis, the cheeks, the inflatable skin of the throat, and the basal portion of the beak then become crimson.[2] In one of the rails, Gallicrex cristatus, a

  1. Mr. Sclater, 'Intellectual Observer,' Jan. 1867. 'Waterton's Wanderings,' p. 118. See also Mr. Salvin's interesting paper, with a plate, in the 'Ibis,' 1865, p. 90.
  2. 'Land and Water,' 1867, p. 394.