Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS

THE FREE-TOED PERCHING BIRDS

THE CHATTERERS

Umbrella-birds

The final group (Gymnoderince) contains, at least as regards color and ornamental appendages, some of the most remarkable members of the whole family. Among these we may first mention the Umbrella-birds (Cephalopterus), of which three species are known. All are provided with a remarkable crest composed of long, slender feathers rising from a contractile skin on the top of the head, and when erected hang as elegant drooping plumes over much of the bill, in fact almost hiding it; the bases of the plumes are white in one species and when the crest is deflected, show as a compact white mass surmounted by the dense, hairy plumes. But this is not all in the way of curious ornamentation. The sides of the neck are naked, but springing from the loose skin of the throat is a cylindrical process of the size of a goose-quill, and two inches or more in length, which in two of the species is covered to its extreme tip with long, loose feathers, thus producing a beautiful cylindrical plume or lappet which reaches an extreme length of thirteen inches in one species, though ordinarily not exceeding six inches. In color these birds are all uniform black throughout, with greenish or metallic reflections on the crest, back, and throat wattle, the females being brownish black, with but slightly developed throat plumes. In the best-known species (C. ornatus) the stems of the head plumes are white, but in the others they are black. This species, which ranges from Guiana and central Brazil through Amazonia to eastern Ecuador and Bolivia, is about eighteen inches long and is described as a shy bird, keeping to the upper branches of the high forest trees, where it seeks its food of fruits. It has a loud, piping note, whence it is called by the native Indians the Fife-bird. The nest, according to Bates and others, is a platform of small branches placed in the top of a tall tree, and the eggs pure white and but four in number. In western Ecuador occurs an allied species (C. penduliger) which is but sixteen inches long, yet has the lappet of the extreme length above mentioned. The remaining species (C. glabricolUs) of Central America from Costa Rica to Panama is of the same length as the last, but has the whole front of the neck and breast bare of feathers, as is the throat wattle. In color the bare skin is reddish orange, that of the base of the naked wattle bright red.

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