STUKNID.E. 215 



materials are so placed that the forks of tlie twig.s are 

 always presented outwards ; by which arrangement not 

 the slightest obstruction is afforded to the i:>assage of the 

 birds. The interest of this curious bower is much 

 enhanced by the manner in which it is decorated, both at 

 and near the entrance, with the most gaily-coloured 

 articles that can be collected ; as the blue tail-feathers of 

 the Rose-hill and Pennantian Parrots, bleached bones, 

 the shells of snails, &c. Some of the feathers are stuck 

 in aaiong the twigs, while the bones and shells are 

 strewed about near the entrances. The propensity of 

 these birds to pick up and ily off with any attractive 

 object i.s so well known to the natives, that they always 

 search tlieii- bowers for any small missing article, such as 

 the bowl of a pipe, &c., that may have been dropped acci- 

 dentally in the brush. Mr. Gould found, at the entrance 

 of one of tliern, a small neatly-worked stone tomahawk, 

 of an inch and a half in length, together with some slips 

 of blue cotton rags, wdiich the birds had doubtless picked 

 up at a deserted encampment of the natives. For what 

 purpose these curious bowers ai'e made is not yet fully 

 understood ; they are certainly not used for a nest, but as 

 a place of resort for many individuals of both sexes, 

 which, when there assembled, run through and around 

 the bower in a sportive and playful manner, and that so 

 frequently, that it is seldom entirely deserted. 



" Another species, the Chlamydera maculata^^ nearly 

 allied to the Satin Bower-bird, constructs a bovver even 

 more extraordinary than that just described, and in 

 which the decorative propensity is carried to a far greater 

 extent. The bowers of this bird are considerably larger, 

 and more avenue-like than those of the Satin Bower-bird, 

 being in many instances as much as three feet in length. 

 They are built of twigs, and beautifully lined with tall 

 grasses, so disposed that their heads nearly meet ; the 

 decorations, moreover, are very profuse, and consist of 

 bivalve shells, crania of small mammals, and other bones. 

 Evident and beautiful indications of design are manifest 

 throughout the whole of this strange edifice and its deco- 

 rations, particularly in the manner in which the stones 

 are placed within the enclosure, apparently to keep the 



* yXfijxvQ, chlamys, a mantle; Sepog, deros, the skin; So called 

 because they have a rose-coloured band at the back of the neck. 



