THE OSPREY. 



The popular names bj' which they are mostly 

 known are Bower birds and Cat birds. 



Bower-bird appears to have been first given 

 by Gould in his Birds of Australia and desig-ned 

 to express the remarkable faculty characteristic 

 of the typical representatives of the group. It 

 appears originally to have been a "book-name" 

 rather than a vernacular one. The best known 

 species of the group — Ptilonorhynchvs violaceus 

 or liolosericeiis — had been generally named by 

 the English colonists of Australia Satin-bird on 

 account of its soft shining plumage "closely re- 

 semblitig satin" even to the e^'es of ornitholo- 

 gist Gould. Cowry — a name, by the way, fami- 

 liar as that of a group of polished shells- was a 

 name current among the natives of the coast of 

 New South Wales. 



The common name of various other species of 

 of the group was and is Cat bird. 



It will be remarked that the name Cat 



bird is thus used in Australia for a very 



different g^roup from that with which the 

 same designation is so familiarly con- 

 nected in America, and therefore the 

 necessity of the scientific name in ad- 

 dition to the vernacular one becomes 

 manifest. The name is applied in Aus- 

 tralia for the same reason that it is in 

 America — the resemblance of the bird's 

 utterance to that of a cat: it recalls "its 

 lamentable noise, not unlike that of a 

 cat, but more that of a crying- child." 



The Cat-birds of Australia "are in- 

 cluded in the Bower-bird family" but, 

 according to Mr. Campbell, "so far as 

 observations have gone, they do not 

 build bowers, nor have any particular 

 playing-places been noticed by observers. 

 Perhaps the3' possess some insignificant 

 playing--place — merely a bare spot of 

 earth, with a few leaves placed thereon, 

 like the play-ground of the Tooth-billed 

 Cat-bird (Scfiiopo'iis) — or perchance the 

 birds select a stump or log-, which they 

 frequent to play, like the Rifle-bird {Piilo- 

 r/ris). 



A most interesting and well illustrated 

 summary of what has been ascertained 

 respecting the Australian representa- 

 tives of this group has been published recently 

 by Mr. Archibald J. Campbell, of Melbourne, iii 

 the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society 

 of Edinburgh. His article is entitled "Nests, 

 Eggs, and Playing grounds of the Australian 

 Ptilonorhynchina2, or Bower-birds and their 

 allies." (Session 1897-98, Februarv 1899, pp. 

 13-41, pi. 1-3.) 



The bowers and nests or bowers alone of 

 eleven species are described and partly illus- 

 trated by Mr. Campbell. These species are 

 the Satin Bower-bird (Piiloiiorhynchus viola- 

 ceus], the connnon Cat-bird of New South Wales 

 {Atlurcedus I'iridis), the Spotted Cat-bird [Aiiiir- 

 cedus maculosus), the Spotted Bower-bird 

 (Chlamydodera maculata), the Yellow-spotted 

 JBower-bird [Chlamydodera guttata), the Great 

 Bower-bird [Chlamydodera niichalis), the Queens- 

 land Bower-bird [Chlamydodera orientalis), the 

 Fawn-breasted Bower-bird [Chlamydodera cervi- 

 niventris), the Tooth-billed Cat-bird [ScenopiTiis 

 dentirostris), the Regent bird [Scriculus meliniis,) 



and the Golden Bower-bird [Prionodura ne-vto7i- 

 ia)ia). 



The names thus given are those used by Mr. 

 Campbell. If we should apply the canons of 

 nomenclature almost universally adopted b^' 

 American ornitholog-ists, we would have to 

 change several. ^-Elnnrdiis would be Ailaroe- 

 diis; Chlamydodera, Chla)iiydera, and Scerio- 

 pirus, Scenopcvetes. The latter of the equivalent 

 names will be used except in quoted paragraphs. 



THE BIRDS. 



The Bower-birds have no very distinctive 

 characters and no trenchant common characters. 

 Some of the older naturalists failed even to ap- 

 preciate their relations. Swainson, for example, 

 placed the two species known to him in distinct 

 families far removed from each other referring 

 P.ilonoi hvnchiis to the familv Stuniidcr and sub- 



>N^ 



Nest of Satin Bower-bird. Ptilonorhynchus violaceus. 

 Reduced from Brehm's Thierleben. 



family Lamprotornincr and Sericulns to the 

 family Meriilidce [Ttirdidcs) and subfamily 

 Oriolincz. The adjoining illustration of the 

 Satin Bower-bird will give a better idea of its 

 appearance than any description or comparison. 

 The latest authority on the Bower-birds, the 

 Hon. Walter Rothschild, admits 8 genera and 

 19 species, although he does not separate them 

 in a diflerent category of any kind from the 

 Birds of Paradise. He has them together, how- 

 ever, in regular sequence as the first eight gen- 

 era of Paradiseidaj. The names of the genera 

 and the number of species in each only can be 

 g-iven here. They are 

 Ptilonorhynchus, 

 Ailuroedus, 



Scenopoeetes, 



Chlamydera, 



Xanthomelus, 



Amblyornis, 



Sericulus, 



Prionodura, 



1 species. 

 6 species. 

 1 species. 

 5 species. 

 1 species. 

 3 species. 

 1 species. 

 1 species. 



