II



“seldom appear except where the larger spots or blotches are

confluent; as if beneath the surface of the shell are a few

irregular shaped, faint markings of slaty grey or pale lilac.”


The Satin Bower-bird inhabits New South Wales, and

ranges throughout Eastern Australia to Rockingham Bay and

Port Denison.


Of the notes of the bird little has been written, but Gould

quotes the following remarks from a letter which he received

from a Mr. F. Strange :—


“ At times the male will chase the female all over the

aviary, then go to the bower, pick up a gay feather or a large

leaf, utter a curious kind of note, set up his feathers erect, run

round the bower, and become so excited that his eyes appear

ready to start from his head, and he continues opening first one

wing and then the other, uttering a low whistling note, and,

like the domestic Cock, seems to be picking up something from

the ground, until at last the female goes gently towards him,

when, after two turns round her, he suddenly makes a dash, and

the scene ends.”


In the case of my birds, to which I have devoted a small

aviary, no bower has been built, although I supplied plenty of

sticks ; probably because the male was only assuming its adult

plumage. He however 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 crying—“ He’s done it, I said he

would ; lie’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 ivhozzle-whozzle-

whozzle-sgrrrr, with variations.


I feed my birds upon a mixture of two parts crumb of stale



