52 



FOBEIGN BIRDS FOR CAGE AND AVIARY. 



email portion of its diet. Inclei>endently o{ 

 numerous berry-bearing plants and shrubs, the 

 brushes it inhabits are studded with enormous fig 

 trees, to the fruit of which it is especially jwr- 

 tial. It appears to have particular times in the day 

 tor feeding, and, wlhen thus engiaged among the low 

 shrub-like trees, I have approached within a few feet 

 without creating alarm ; but at other times the bird was 

 extremely shy and watchful, especially the old males, 

 which not inifrequenJtly perch on tllie topmost branch or 

 dead linilb of the loftiest tree in the forest, whence they 

 can survey all refund, and wia'tdh the movements o£ their 

 females and young in the brush Ibelonv." 



Respecting the playing tunnels (bowers, as they are 

 fancaJ'ullly called) constructed by these birds, Gould says 

 they are placed "on the ground, under the shelter "of 

 the brandies of overhanging trees, in the most retired 

 part of the forest; they differed considerably in size, 

 some being a third larger tlvan others. The "(base con- 

 eiste of an extensive and rather convex platform of 

 sticks firmly interwoven, on the oeaitre of which the 

 bower itself is built ; this, like the platform on which 

 jt is placed, and with which it is interwoven, is formed 

 of sticks and twigs, but of a more slender and flexihJe 

 desca-iption, the tips of the tfwigs being so arranged 

 as to curve inwarids and nearly meet ait ithe top ; in 

 the interior the materials are so placed that the forks 

 of the twigs aa-e always presented outwards, by which 

 arrangement not the slightest olbsitruction is offered to 

 the passage of the birds. The interest of this cui-ious 

 bower is much enhanced by the manner in which it is 

 decorated with the most gaily-ooloured articles that can 

 be collected, such as the blu"6 taiUeathei's of the Rose- 

 hill and Pennantian Parrakeets, bleached bones, the 

 shells of snails, etc. ; some of the featheo's are inserted 

 among the twigs, whil-? others, with the bones and 

 shells, are strewed about near the entrances. The pro- 

 pensity of these birds to fly off with any attractive 

 object is so well knowTitothe natives that they always 

 sea-rch the rmis for any small missing article that may 

 have been accidentally dropped in the brush. I myself 

 found at the entrance of one of them a small, neatly- 

 worked stone tomahawk of an inch and a h ilf in lennth, 

 together with some shps of blue cotton rags, which the 

 birds had doubtless picked up at a deserted encampjnent 

 of the natives. 



"It has now been clearly ascentained that these 

 curious bowers a.re merely siportinw-plac«s in which the 

 se.ves meet, and the males display their finery and 

 exhibit many remarkable actions ; and so inherent is 

 this halbit that the living examtples which have from 

 time to time been sent to this counti'y continue it even 

 in captivity. Those belonging to the "Zpologic.il Society 

 have congtruated their bowers, decorated and kept them 

 in repair for several successive years." 



In A. J. Oampbell's " Neste and E.ggs of Anistralian 

 Birds" is an admira-ble photographic illustration of the 

 nest and eggs of this species in situ. I therefore take 

 the description of both from his valuable work. pp. 191, 

 192, as follows: — Ne-^l : Open, shallow, somewhat 

 loosely construoted of twigs ; lined inside with leaveis 

 tExicalyphis), un,d placed in a scrublby bush or tree, alt 

 a heigOvt varying from about ten to thirty feet from the 

 ground. Dimensions over all : Daameter seven or eight 

 inches, by five inches in deipth. 



I'lifqs: Clutch, two to three; shape, true oval; shell 

 moderately fine in texture, surface glossy ; colour i-aries 

 from dark cream to dirty yellow, irregularly blotched 

 and spotted with umber, cinnanion-bix>wn, and a few 

 purplish-grey markings. In some specimens the 

 blotches are very bold, with the markings imder the 

 surface of the shnll of a bluish-black shade. Occasion- 



ally there is a type with a lifter or paler coiloiuped 

 ground and smaller-sized markings. Otheirs, again, 

 have the markings more in the form of hieroglj-iphics. 

 Dimensions in inches of a tvpioal clutch : (1) 1.76 x 

 1.19; (2) 1.74 X LIT- 



Mr. Oajiiplbell tells us that "some seasons Satin Bitids 

 are very destructive in the gardens and orchards, eating 

 clover, especially the floweTs, English grass, calhlbages 

 dawn tO' the very root, and fruit. The late W. B. 

 Bailey, Pimipama Nurseries, South Queensland, in- 

 formed me of an instance in which he had aibout three 

 acres of miandarin oranges stripped in a week. The 

 birds are also fond of sweet potato tubers. I noticed ait 

 Mr. Bailey's residence a very bajidaome male bird which 

 be had in captivity. It was in its jnouthfuil coat of 

 mottled green when he iii-sl- obtained it. It is interest- 

 ing to learn that this bird did not don its full livery 

 of blue-lbladc till the fourth year. The bird was an 

 excellent mimic, could talk, and imitate well the meiw- 

 ing of a cat." 



in 1900 I described the behaviour of what I then 

 believed to be a pair of Bower-birds in my possession, 

 as follows : — " He constantly sings to the hen, puffs 

 out his feathers, arches his back, alternately opens and 

 shuts one wing or the other, flies round with a dropped 

 quill feather in his beak, and once he so alarmed his 

 wife that she turned on her back on the earth with 

 open beak and claws up to defend herself. My man 

 came running to me saying: 'He's done it; I said 

 he would ; he's killed her ! ' And certainly it looked 

 like it until I went inside the aviary, when she was 

 up and off to her favourite roost in a second. 



"The song is a most comical performance, and 

 resembles nothing so much as water, containing bits of 

 cabbage-leaf, running down a sink, and interspersed 

 here and there with clear Starling-like notes. The 

 alarm note is a jarring monosyllable most like the 

 word scoot, with a very rough hesitation on the c. As 

 this species is particularly nervous and excitable, the 

 alarm-note is often heard. It is difficult to express the 

 sounds of the song in words, but the idea it conveys 

 to the mind is a rapid ■wliozzle-whozzh-whozzle-sqrrrr, 

 with variations." 



Briefly to review the history of my two Bower-birds, 

 I may note that the supposed pair (palpably in nest- 

 ling plumage, both small and with indications of pale 

 spots on the green j^lumage) came into my possession 

 in September, 1899, and at the end of a year one had 

 assumed the adult plumage of the male, the other the 

 adult plumage of the female. Naturally I concluded 

 that I had secured an undoubted pair, although both 

 sang and danced ; and though they certainly quarrelled, 

 that fact in no way disturbed my faith, because from 

 my boyhood I had been taught that " the quarrels of 

 lovers are the beginning of love." 



When in Jidy, 1904, the supposed hen began to assume 

 male plumage and became so spiteful that I had to 

 remove the undoubted cock, I concluded, as a matter 

 of course, that disease of the ovary was affecting her 

 plumage (see my short paper in the " Annals and 

 Magazine of Natural History," Seventh Series, Vol. 

 XVI., pp. 350-351). Later the perfect male plumage was 

 acquired and retained permanently, and e.xactl,y three 

 years later the bird died and proved to be a cock. 



Why some cock birds should assume male plumage at 

 the end of the second year, and others should disport 

 themselves in female attire for six years or longer, is a 

 problem which requires a good deal of explanation, 

 ily birds were only two out of half a dozen or more, 

 ail palpably young birds, imported in one batch. 



In 1902 {the Avicultunil Magazine, Second Series, 

 Vol. I., pp. 63-58) Mrs. Johnstone published an in- 



