1
+•
GORGET
P. R.
P l. XX.
jDSSCJtLP TIOBÏ.
Blomefield is a fine fpecimen, from whence the above defcription
was taken ; and I have feen a fécond at Sirjofeph Banks’s.
Aldrovandus talks o fa crefted Bird of Paradife *, which he fays
had a creft near the neck, almoft three inches high, ridged, o fa
yellow colour, and feemed to confift rather of briftles than feathers.
But this bird was eighteen inches long : the bill long,
black, and hooked j and the feathers of the head, neck, and
wings, black, being yellow at the joining of the bill.
THIS elegant fpecies is about the fize of a Blackbird in the
body j which, from the tip of the bill to the infertion of the
tail, meafures no more than about fix inches, the tail occupying
all the reft. The bill is an inch in length, rather ftout, moderately
bent, and o fa black colour : the forehead is furniihed with
tufted thick feathers, which occupy alfo the fides of the head;
and beneath the eye, and round the throat, they are fo full as to
enlarge thofe parts confiderably in bulk: the colour of this part
of the plumage is black, and like plufh or velvet; but from the
root of the under mandible, at the chin, are a few feathers of the
common ftrufture, with webs : the back part of the head, nape,
and hind part and fides of the neck, to the beginning of the back,
are of a gilded green, but the feathers are not much unlike thofe
in common, and which, in courfe, fitting clofer to the lkin, give
thofe parts a flat appearance: at the angles of the mouth begins a
line of the moft brilliant gilded copper-colour imaginable, which
pafles beneath the eye, growing wider by degrees, and finifhes in a
• A*v. i. p. 811. pi. in 814.— Rail Syn. p. 21. N° 4%-^WUU orn. p. 92«
4.— ^Compare alfo ForriVoy* p. 140. N°6? kind