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Chastened by the half-averted face of irresponsive science, the glowing desire to inflate the list gave way to the crisper sort of satisfaction which is like the joy that cometh in the morning. White-rumped Wood-Swallow ARTAMUS LEUCOGASTER. Shining Starling CALORNIS METALLICA. Noisy Pitta PITTA STREPITANS.
The genera Ceyx among Kingfishers, Criniger among Thrushes, Rhipidura among Flycatchers, Calornis among Starlings, and Erythrura among Finches, are all found in the Moluccas as well as in Borneo and Java but not a single species belonging to any one of them is found in Celebes.
The shining calornis is a handsome fellow, gleaming black, with purple and green sheen. The live bird differs so greatly from the dull, stuffed specimen of the museum that one is tempted to endeavour to convey by similitude its wonderful radiance.
Prodigal and profuse as she may be, Nature is the rarest of economists. Out here in the forest is springing up an oasis of jungle, every plant of which owes its origin to the shining calornis. It must not be thought that all the notes of these most engaging birds, symbolic of light in plumage and in flight, are shrill and strident.
Perhaps the most interesting and entertaining of all the birds of the island is that commonly known as the weaver or friendly bird, otherwise the metallic starling, the shining calornis of the ornithologist, the "Tee-algon" of the blacks. Throughout the coastal tract of North Queensland this bird is fairly familiar.
At any rate, after twenty minutes' passive watchfulness, he sailed up over the trees and away in the direction of his home in the socialistic community of the shining calornis. The white-headed sea-eagle is a deadly foe to the pugnacious sea-serpent also.
The colony the history of which it is proposed to relate was no doubt an offshoot of the first brood of those which had arrived on that date. Circumstances exist which persuade me that the shining Calornis rear two broods during the season. Nutmeg pigeons rear as many as three young successively.
Here in the Moreton Bay ash, taken advantage of by the shining calornis, a white-headed, rufous-backed sea-eagle nests, and the graceful, fierce-looking pair come and go among the glittering noisy throng without exciting any special comment.
It is almost entirely of a slatey colour, with yellow bill and feet, but the feathers of the rump and upper tail-coverts each terminate in a rigid, glossy pencil or tuft of a vivid crimson. These pretty little birds take the place of the metallic-green starlings of the genus Calornis, which are found in most other islands of the Archipelago, but which are absent from Celebes.
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