PKIONODUUA. °' 



(Colhvwanda harmomca), but not so loud, and as tliey are somewhat ahke in colour and form, 

 I have frequently mistaken one for the other in the thick scrub. 1 have found a great number 

 of their bowers. Those of the f^rst season are simply a lot of sticks and twigs placed around 

 two small trees growing about a yard or slightly more apart. The following season it is added 

 to and gradually assumes a V shape at the bottom of the inner portion, being now about two 

 feet in height. As a rule, there is a stick placed transversely across the bower, within f^ve or 

 six inches^of the bottom. The walls are added to each season, but one is always built higher 

 than the other after the first year. The largest I ever found was nine feet high on one side 

 and six feet six inches on the other, and resembled two pyramids of diflerent heights with 

 their bases touching each other. Some bowers are rounded at the bottom, and nearly all I 

 have seen are more or less ornamented with floral decorations according to the season of the 

 year These consist of pieces of green moss, bits of fern, white rock-lilies, orchids, and flowers 

 of other plants, and are placed inside on the higher wall and at the bottom of the bower. 

 Seldom have I found a bower with the lower wall decorated. The flowers are <iuite fresh, the 

 birds pickin- out the dead ones every day and replacing them with freshly gathered specimens. 

 Sprigs of pure white orchids and wax-like rock-lilies are the flowers most favoured for 

 decorating purposes. Although these bowers are used by both sexes as a play-ground where 

 they can chase and gambol with one another, they are frequently the scene of a pitched battle 

 between a couple of adult males. This is caused by one male removing the flower placed in 

 position -by another, and a fight ensues, the remainder of the birds looking on and making a 

 great noise, but not interfering with the combatants. I have never seen the females or young 

 males fight, it is alwavs the finest plumaged old males. These birds are very tame, and I 

 have sat" for seseral hours at a time watching their curious antics at the bowers. The flowers 

 are all placed upright, inside their play-houses, but to see what the birds would do I once 

 turned one of their orchids upside down. On the birds reassembling they made a great fuss 

 and noise, and one of the old males replaced the flower in its proper position. I repeated the 

 operation, and the flower was again placed upright by the old male. The large bowers are 

 resorted to bv a number of birds, and I have obtained ONer thirty at xarious times at a 

 well frequented play-house. On Blount Battle Frere I found fifteen of their bowers of different 

 sizes within a radius of one hundred yards. I have also seen them fully a mile apart. 



" The aborigines of the Bellenden Ker Range snare these birds by means of birdlime, of 

 which I send you a sample. They make it m a very simple manner from the different species 

 of fig and a pine. Cutting the stem of one of these trees, from which a milk-like sap will freely 

 exude, they work the sap up in their mouths, or wet hands, into a ball. This mass when wet will 

 not stick, but when free from moisture forms a very good lime. The sticks of the bower are 

 then smeared with this preparation and the birds are easily caught. The birds do not frequent 

 the bower during the wet season. 1 ha^■e also seen Parrakeets and Crows securely held with this 

 viscous substance. For the latter they place a piece of meat on the end of a stick, smeared 

 with the lime, and which is stuck upright into the ground, the native in the meantime lying 

 concealed near at hand until one of the birds is caught. It is not much used, how^eyer, 

 owing to the humid atmosphere of these ranges during the greater part of the year, for if a 

 shower comes on it has to be worked up again before it will adhere." 



Mr. Dav forwarded sketches of several of the bowers he had seen, together with their 

 measurements and decorations. They vary from two to nine feet in height on the higher side, 

 and from eighteen inches to six feet six inches on the lower, the decorations sent consisting 

 chiefly of rock-lilies, a species of whitish flower resembling apple-blossom, mosses, bits of fern, 

 berries, and clusters of small grape-like fruits. A bower found by Mr. Day on the 14th May, 

 1898, near the Upper Russell River, he informs me, was built near a large fig-tree on a hill- 

 side, overgrown with saplings, ribbon and tassel ferns, and partially sheltered at one end by a 



