72 Allen's naturalists library. 



grounds, but personally I have never seen a bird dancing in 

 them, but have always found the proprietor either seated 

 quietly in, or moving backwards and forwards slowly about, 

 them, calling at short intervals, except in the morning and 

 evening, when they roam about to feed and drink. The males 

 are always to be found at home, and they roost at night on 

 some tree quite close by. 



" They are the most difficult birds I know of to approach. 

 A mAle is heard calling, and you gradually follow up the sound, 

 taking care not to make the slightest noise, till at last the bird 

 calls within a few yards of you, and is only hidden by the 

 denseness of the intervening foliage. You creep forward, 

 hardly daring to breathe, and suddenly emerge on the open 

 space, but the space is empty; the bird has either caught sight 

 of, or heard, or smelt you, and has run off quietly. They will 

 never rise, even when pursued by a dog, if they can possibly 

 avoid it, but run very swiftly away, always choosing the densest 

 and most impenetrable part of the forest to retreat through. 

 When once the cleared space is discovered, it is merely the 

 work of a little patience to secure the bird by trapping it. The 

 easiest way is to run a low fence of cut scrub round the spot, 

 leaving four openings just sufficiently wide to enable the bird to 

 pass through, and in these openings to place nooses fastened 

 to the end of a pliant sapling, which is bent and kept down by 

 a catch. This is the usual way, and the one I adopted to 

 secure most of my specimens, as I found it as difficult to shoot, 

 as it was easy to trap, them. The natives, however, have other 

 ways of securing them, all dependent on taking advantage of 

 the bird's idiosyncrasy about keeping its home clean. , . . 



" The males are not at all quarrelsome, and apparently never 

 interfere with each other, though they will answer each other's 

 calls. The call of the male sounds like ' hoiv-how^ repeated 

 ten or a dozen times, and is uttered at short intervals when 

 the bird is in its clearing, one commencing, and others in the 

 neighbourhood answering. The report of a gun will set every 



