Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 61



Naturalists, until of late, were accustomed to pay so little regard to the habits and manners of birds, that of some of the most common species, we know as little now, as we did a century ago. We are in this predicament with the species before us, called the Dial Bird by Albin, whose vague and very questionable account of its manners, has been copied by every succeeding writer. We believe that under the name of Gracula Saularis, two, if not three species are confounded. We doubt Le Vaillants Cadran (Ois. d'Af. pl. 109) being the same as our bird: he distinctly describes and figures the female as rufous. Ours, (so labelled), is grey. To us, its natural affinity with the Saxicolæ appears almost unquestionable, but on this point we shall dwell more at length in another place. The curious analogy between this bird and Petroica bicolor, has already been mentioned: the plumage of both are precisely alike. It is thus that Nature, ever unfolding some new link of her interminable chain of relations, impresses on the mind the sublimity of that plan, which OMNIPOTENCE alone can fully comprehend.