PTII.OXORIIYNCHUS. 39 



Liverpool Range. These were afterwards figured and accurately described by fiim in his 

 splendid work on the Birds of Australia. The bovver, or play-house, is built on the ground, 

 generally in scrub, and placed near a fallen log or moss-covered rock. .\ space is cleared in 

 the undergrowtii from two to three feet in diameter, which is covered with a layer of thin sticks 

 and twigs to a depth of three inches. In the centre of tiiis platform, which is slightly higher 

 and slopes gradually to the sides, two parallel walls formed of thin curved sticks and twigs are 

 built, the base of the walls being thicker and the inner portion of the bower resembling in form 

 an inverted horse-shoe. Great variation e.\ists in the shape and size of these walls. In some 

 the twigs of which they are formed meet or cross one another at the top, forming an arch; 

 others are nearly upright, while not infrequently the top of the walls is wider apart than 

 the base; and in several 1 have examined the inner portion was concave, narrowing towards 

 either end. The walls at the base measure from ten inches to two feet in length, and are as a 

 rule narrower at the top, twelve to fourteen inches in height, and externally ten to twelve inches 

 in breadtli at tlie entrance. Internally they measure at either end from four to six inches, 

 which gradually widen out in the centre of some, from six to eight inches. Scattered over the 

 platform are loose twigs, and about the entrance of the bower bits of bleached bone, land shells, 

 pieces of moss, berries, and bright feathers, one or more of the latter, and chiefly the rigid wing or 

 tail feathers of Pennant's and the Rose-hill Parrakeets being worked into the sides of the bower. 

 Since the advent of settlers in Australia, any bright or glistening article is used by these birds 

 to ornament their play -grounds. A bower which was tenanted by several birds the greater 

 part of the year, and close to the house where I stayed during my visits to South Gipps'and, 

 was, with the exception of a few land shells, entirely decorated by bits of broken crockery and 

 glass. .Another, obtained by Mr. .\. P. Kemp and Mr. E. R. Waite, in the Dondingalong scrubs 

 sixteen miles from Kempsey, on the Macleay River, had the cast skin of a small snake worked 

 into the front of one of the walls, and was ornamented with a few bits of green moss, dead 

 leaves, and dried sprays of flowers. This is one of the smallest bowers I have seen of this 

 species, measuring only ten inches at the base of the walls, eight inches at the top, and 

 internally three and a half indies at either entrance, widening out to five inches and a half near 

 the centre. It differs, too, in having the platform of twigs on which it is built strewn over with 

 a species of yellow sedge, resembling straw; a female was procured at this structure. A bower 

 found in the damp scrubs near Jenolan Caves, by Mr. J. C. W'iburd. and forwarded by him to the 

 Trustees of the .\ustralian Museum, had among the usual decorations six specimens of a then 

 unnamed and well marked variety of land shell, which Mr. C. Hedley has since distinguished as 

 Thersites giilosa, Gould, var. depyessa/'- This bower will be found figured in Dr. Sharpe's " Monograph 

 of the Paradiseida; and Ptilonorhynchida;." At these bowers or avenue-like structures, the sexes 

 meet and disport themselves, chasing one another through their play -ground and stopping now 

 and again to alter, or add, some new decoration. The males assume at times some grotesque 

 attitudes. With head lowered, feathers of the neck erect, drooping wings, and tail-feathers 

 expanded, they move about the bower or pay attention to the females, more especially during 

 the pairing season. 



The nest is usually built in the fork of a tree, at a height varying from six to forty feet 

 from the ground. Not infrequently it is placed in the upright branches of a Loranthus, 

 growing from the top of an horizontal branch : — a favourite -site with members of the allied 

 genus Chlamydodci-a. In the coastal districts of New South Wales, the dififerent species of 

 Casiiarina are chiefly selected as nesting-sites, and occasionally Acacias. I knew of one built 

 in an orange-tree, and another in an apple-tree; both being within hand-reach. Inland, on 

 the Blue Mountains, the Prickly Box I Buysavia spinosa), is a favourite nesting-site, the 

 spiny dried twigs of this tree being often used in the outer construction of the nest. 



• Rec. Aust. Mus.,.Vol. iv., p. 2Z, (1901). 



