Stray Feathers/Volume 1/July 1873/Phœnicophaus pyrrhocephalus
On Phænicophaus Pyrrhocephalus. Forster.
By Vincent Legge, Esq., R. A.
This handsome malkoba, one of our rarest birds, is exclusively a denizen of forest or large secondary jungle, and has been thought hitherto to inhabit only the western and south-western districts of Ceylon. Layard notes it from the former part, Annals of Natural History, 1854, and speaks of it as very rare and frequenting the tops of high trees. He says that he could learn nothing of its habits or nidification from the natives. This accords with my experience of aboriginal knowledge on the subject; in those districts where I have shot it, I have found the natives quite ignorant about it, many of them never having seen it before. This arises from the fact of its existing in small numbers and being at the same time very shy and wary and an inhabitant of the interior of the forest. At the same time I have shewn the birds in my collection to intelligent natives and they have recognized it; nevertheless as I have shot it in company with villagers, well up in the birds of their neighbourhood, but who were totally ignorant about it, it must be allowed that taking its showy appearance into consideration, and the consequent likelihood of its not escaping observation, it is one of our rarest birds. Mr. Holdsworth in his Catalogue of Ceylon birds, Proceedings, Zvological Sociely, page 433, 1872, says, he saw one flying across a road in the Central Province. This proves that like many of our forest birds Centropus chlororhynchus, Dioruruss lophurhinus, Toccus gingalensis, Chrysocolaptes Stricklandi and others, it extends its range up to a considerable elevation.
It has been lately my good fortune to procure Phoenicophaus pyrrhocephalus in the splendid forests between Anuradhapoora and Trincomalie, a district which I was surprised to find very Ceylonese in the character of its Avifauna, the same spot yielding many island birds, such as Oreocincla spiloptera, Rubigula melanictera, Xantholæma rubricapilla and Chrysocolaptes Stricklandi, the latter in numbers. It was nevertheless a matter of some surprise to me to find this bird in the north of Ceylon, as I had become wedded to the belief that it was very local and quite a western inhabitant of our forests. It was as is usual, according to my experience, in pairs. While watching the movements and sprightly actions of a pair of Dissemurus malabaricus, one of these birds flew on to the limb of a lofty forest tree under which I was standing, and being partly obscured from my view by the leaves of an under-growing tree, so that I could only clearly distinguish the tail, I took it for a bombrel, Toccus gingalensis of which there were numbers in the vicinity. I was, however, soon undeceived by seeing the brilliant crimson face contrasting with the brown leaves on which my prize had fallen, and thinking its mate was not far off, I remained perfectly still, and in another moment I heard a low “kaa," resembling one of the notes of our jay at home, and saw the second bird flying from limb to limb of the great forest trees around me, looking for its fallen companion, on alighting each time it uttered its low call and elevated its tail. It presently flew into the tree under which I stood and fell to my shot. The first killed bird, the male, was the smaller of the two and had the iris deep clear brown, the last the female, had a pearl white eye! I have digressed from my subject into somewhat of a narrative on the shooting of these birds, simply to shew that they were a pair and evidently mated and consequently both adults.
In December, 1871, I met with a pair under similar circumstances, in forest, on the low hills of the south-west, not far from Galle. They were flushed from some low bushes in the jungle and flew, with short flights from tree to tree, one after the other, uttering a much harsher and louder cry than that of the female just alluded to. I procured both birds, the male with dark brown iris and the female with a pure white. The sexual organs in the male birds in both instances were well developed, and there was no appearance whatever of immaturity about their plumage. The measurements of the two southern birds were as follows:
Male—Total length, 17 inches; tail, 9.5; wing, 6; bill to gape, 1.5; tarsus 14; outer anterior toe, nearly 1.
Female—Total length, 18 inches; tail, 10-7; wing, 6.2; tarsus, 15 ; outer anterior toe, 1.
The tail of the male is imperfect, the bird being in moult, but the longest existing feather is one of the uropygials and is an old feather, and the short outermost feathers are nearly half inch shorter than the corresponding ones in the female.
The dimensions of the pair shot in the north-east show the same disparity in size, and are as follows:
Male—Total length, 17-3 inches; tail, 10; wing, 6 ; tarsus, 1.5; outer anterior toe, 1.
Female—Total length, 18.1 inches; tail, 11:3; wing, 6-2; tarsus, 1}. The tail of the male in this case, I regret to say, is imperfect, but as before noted the longest existing feather is an old one and one of the centre ones. Taking these circunstances into consideration together with the difference in the wing, it appears very apparent that the female is the larger bird of the two, but until more specimens are shot and carefully measured and compared, I would not state that this is a constant feature.
On the other hand, with regard to the iris, there is no doubt whatever that in the female it is pure white, and in the male dark brown. In both cases that have come under my notice as I have shewn the birds were pairs, and in the adult state. Every naturalist knows how the eye changes in many immature birds notably in Raptores, but in the case of Phaenicophaus pyrrhocephalus, the difference of colour above noticed is undoubtedly due to sex and not to age. The colour of the iris seems to have been a problem since the bird was discovered^ arising no doubt from the fact of single specimens having always been procured. The remarks of Mr. Holdsworth in his catalogue above quoted bear me out in my experience. He says : "Layard says, the irides of this cuckoo are white; but in the living bird[1] (a male) I had, they were brown, and they are marked as of that colour in specimens in Lord Walden^s collection." These latter are doubtless males.
This bird will no doubt be found to inhabit the forests round the south-eastern and eastern slopes of the mountain zone as well as those of the west, south-west^ and north-east in which localities I have procured it.
- ↑ One brought to him by some natives, who had captured it.