Tropical nature, and other essaysWallace, Alfred Russel
History
Tropical nature, and other essays
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Ecology -- Tropics; Natural history -- Tropics; Tropics
One of the features of tropical birds that will first strike the
observer, is the prevalence of crests and of ornamental plumage
in various parts of the body, and especially of extremely long
or curiously shaped feathers in the tails, tail-coverts, or
wings of a variety of species. As examples we may refer to the
red paradise-bird, whose middle tail-feathers are like long
ribands of whalebone; to the wire-like tail-feathers of the king
bird-of-paradise of New Guinea, and of the wire-tailed manakin
of the Amazons; and to the long waving tail-plumes of the whydah
finch of West Africa and paradise-flycatcher of India; to the
varied and elegant crests of the cock-of-the-rock, the king-tyrant,
the umbrella-bird, and the six-plumed bird-of-paradise; and to
the wonderful side-plumes of most of the true paradise-birds. In
other orders of birds we have such remarkable examples as the
racquet-tailed kingfishers of the Moluccas, and the racquet-tailed
parrots of Celebes; the enormously developed tail-coverts of the
peacock and the Mexican trogon; and the excessive wing-plumes of
the argus-pheasant of Malacca and the long-shafted goatsucker of
West Africa.
Still more remarkable are the varied styles of coloration in the
birds of tropical forests, which rarely or never appear in those of
temperate lands. We have intensely lustrous metallic plumage in the
jacamars, trogons, humming-birds, sun-birds, and paradise-birds;
as well as in some starlings, pittas or ground-thrushes, and
drongo-shrikes. Pure green tints occur in parrots, pigeons, green
bulbuls, greenlets, and in some tanagers, finches, chatterers, and
pittas. These undoubtedly tend to concealment; but we have also the
strange phenomenon of white forest-birds in the tropics, a colour
only found elsewhere among the aquatic tribes and in the arctic
regions. Thus, we have the bell-bird of South America, the white
pigeons and cockatoos of the East, with a few starlings, woodpeckers,
kingfishers, and goatsuckers, which are either very light-coloured
or in great part pure white.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account