The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)Phillip, Arthur
History
The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay: With an Account of the Establishment of the Colonies of Port Jackson and Norfolk Island (1789)
Phillip, Arthur
Natural history -- Australia -- New South Wales; New South Wales -- Discovery and exploration; Norfolk Island
"The length of this beautiful species is five inches and a half: the bill
black: the feathers of the head are long, and stand erect like a full
crest; from the forehead to the crown they are of a bright blue; from
thence to the nape, black like velvet: through the eyes from the bill, a
line of black; beneath the eye springs a tuft of the same blue feathers;
beneath these and on the chin, it is of a deep blue almost black, and
feeling like velvet: on the ears is another patch of blue, and across the
back part of the head a band of the same, (in some specimens, the patches
of blue under the eye and on the ear unite together, and join with the
band at the nape, as in the plate*) the whole giving the head a greater
appearance of bulk than is natural: the hind part of the neck and upper
parts of the body and tail, deep blue black; the under, pure white:
wings, dusky; shafts of the quills chesnut: the tail, two inches and a
quarter long, and cuneiform; the two outer feathers very short: legs
dusky brown: claws black." Latham's Synopsis, vol. iv. p. 501.
[* Latham's Synopsis, vol. iv. pl. 53.]
The disposition of the blue is found to differ in most of the specimens.
In the present variety, the whole head is enveloped in blue, which
terminates in an irregularly waving line, and is continued below the eye
in a broad band, edged in the same manner, and running almost to a point,
as low as the bottom of the neck on each side; but there is no band
continued round the neck, which, both above and below, is of the deep
blue like velvet, mentioned by Mr. Latham. Some feathers of a very bright
orange lie immediately under that blue, and above the wings*.
[* The Specimens from which Mr. Latham took his descriptions were met with
at Van Diemen's Land, the most southern part of New Holland.]
SUPERB WARBLER, Female.
When Mr. Latham's Synopsis was published, the female of this species was
entirely unknown; and it was conjectured by that author that the
disposition of the blue might possibly mark the sexes. The female is now
discovered to be entirely destitute of all the fine blue colours, both
pale and dark, by which the male is adorned, except that there is a very
narrow circle of azure round each eye, apparently on the skin only: all
the upper feathers consist of shades of brown, and the whole throat and
belly is pure white. Except from the shape and size, this bird would not
be suspected at first sight to belong to the same species as the male:
the epithet of superb applies very ill to the female.
CASPIAN TERN. Birds, Order IX. Webfooted. Genus LXXXVIII. Species I. Variety B.
The plate of this bird is inserted at pag. 77. Mr. Latham's description
is as follows.
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