To which account we may add, that the bill is very strong at the base, and sharp at the point; that the feathers immediately above the bill are tinged with yellow; and that the toes, as in most of this species, are three before and one behind.

Superb warbler, male.  Birds, Order iii.  Passerine.  Genus XLI.  Warbler.  Species 137.  A new variety.

“The length of this beautiful species is five inches and a half:  the bill black:  the feathers of the head are long, and stand erect like a full crest; from the forehead to the crown they are of a bright blue; from thence to the nape, black like velvet:  through the eyes from the bill, a line of black; beneath the eye springs a tuft of the same blue feathers; beneath these and on the chin, it is of a deep blue almost black, and feeling like velvet:  on the ears is another patch of blue, and across the back part of the head a band of the same, (in some specimens, the patches of blue under the eye and on the ear unite together, and join with the band at the nape, as in the plate*) the whole giving the head a greater appearance of bulk than is natural:  the hind part of the neck and upper parts of the body and tail, deep blue black; the under, pure white:  wings, dusky; shafts of the quills chesnut:  the tail, two inches and a quarter long, and cuneiform; the two outer feathers very short:  legs dusky brown:  claws black.”  Latham’s Synopsis, vol. iv. p. 501.

[* Latham’s Synopsis, vol. iv. pl. 53.]

The disposition of the blue is found to differ in most of the specimens.  In the present variety, the whole head is enveloped in blue, which terminates in an irregularly waving line, and is continued below the eye in a broad band, edged in the same manner, and running almost to a point, as low as the bottom of the neck on each side; but there is no band continued round the neck, which, both above and below, is of the deep blue like velvet, mentioned by Mr. Latham.  Some feathers of a very bright orange lie immediately under that blue, and above the wings*.

[* The Specimens from which Mr. Latham took his descriptions were met with at Van Diemen’s Land, the most southern part of New Holland.]

Superb warbler, Female.

When Mr. Latham’s Synopsis was published, the female of this species was entirely unknown; and it was conjectured by that author that the disposition of the blue might possibly mark the sexes.  The female is now discovered to be entirely destitute of all the fine blue colours, both pale and dark, by which the male is adorned, except that there is a very narrow circle of azure round each eye, apparently on the skin only:  all the upper feathers consist of shades of brown, and the whole throat and belly is pure white.  Except from the shape and size, this bird would not be suspected at first sight to belong to the same species as the male:  the epithet of superb applies very ill to the female.