Identifier: CompanionGoulds00Digg (find matches)
Title: Companion to Gould's Handbook; or, Synopsis of the birds of Australia. Containing nearly one-third of the whole, or about 220 examples, for the most part from the original drawings
Year: 1877 (1870s)
Authors: Diggles, Silvester Gould, John, 1804-1881. Handbook to the birds of Australia
Subjects: Birds
Publisher: Brisbane, Thorne & Greenwell
Contributing Library: Smithsonian Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: Smithsonian Libraries

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companies of five or six,but more frequently in pairs, and endures some persecution from other birds, who seem to be instinctively aware of its peculiar propensities ;for, like the family generally, it is parasitical—laying its eggs in the nests of other birds, and principally of birds much smaller in size thanitself. It is singular to see so large a bird tended by others sometimes not half as large as itself. Specimens of the Scythrops have beenshot, the stomachs of which were filled with smaU black seeds ; and it also feeds largely, as before stated, upon insects, preference being givento grasshoppers and phasmidee. Mr. Swainson, in his classification of birds, places this species in connexion with the Toucans, to whichfamily (exclusively American) it certainly bears a near relation, only requiring the brilliancy of coloring possessed by those birds to completethe resemblance. Its voice is harsh and disagreeable, but loud and peculiar, and seldom heard but in the morning. HI^-#%J,
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