to a particular island, or portion of country, and are rarely if ever found anywhere else.
For this peculiarity it is difficult to assign a reason, as these birds are quite capable of
migrating from one island to another, especially when placed as near to each other as
are those in some portions of the Indian Archipelago.
This fact, although it is a curious one, is not, I am well aware, uncommon in ornithology,
for many birds possessing great powers of flight (such as some species of eagles
and hawks) are always found in certain localities or districts, and rarely at any distance
from those places, while the little warblers, and wrens, which seem to fly with difficulty
from one point to another, wander over the greater portion of a continent.
It may he the quantity or quality of food: it certainly is in many cases the difference
of climate which prevents migration among some species of birds; but one
would hardly imagine that either of the above causes would be sufficiently great, among
the islands of the Indian Archipelago, to prevent any one species (inhabiting that portion
of the world) from dwelling upon them all.
Between the male and female there is no difference in the color of the plumage..
The figures in the plate are of the natural size. The plant is the Hibriscus Syriacus
Yariegatus.