TNSESSORES. 443 



bearing plants and shrubs, the brushes it inhabits are studded 

 with enormous fig-trees, to the fruit of which it is especially 

 partial. It appears to have particular times in the day for 

 feeding, and when thus engaged 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 unfrequently 

 perch on the topmost branch or dead limb of the loftiest tree 

 in the forest, whence they can survey all round, and watch the 

 movements of their females and young in the brush below. 



In the autumn they associate in small flocks, and may often 

 be seen on the ground near the sides of rivers, particularly 

 where the brush descends in a steep bank to the water's edge. 



The extraordinary bower-like structure, alluded to in my 

 remarks on the genus, first came under my notice in the 

 Sydney Museum, to which an example had been presented 

 by Charles Coxen, Esq., of Brisbane, as the work of the 

 Satin Bower-bird. This so much interested me that I deter- 

 mined to leave no means untried for ascertaining every par- 

 ticular relating to this peculiar feature in the bird's economy ; 

 and on visiting the cedar-brushes of the Liverpool range, I 

 discovered several of these bowers or playing-places on the 

 ground, under the shelter of the branches of overhanging trees, 

 in the most retired part of the forest : they differed consider- 

 ably in size, some being a third larger than others. The base 

 consists of an extensive and rather convex platform of sticks 

 firmly interwoven, on the centre of which the bower itself is 

 built : this, like the platform on which it is placed, and with 

 which it is interwoven, is formed of sticks and twigs, but of a 

 more slender and flexible description, the tips of the twigs 

 being so arranged as to curve inwards and nearly meet at 

 the top : in the interior the materials are so placed that the 

 forks of the twigs are always presented outwards, by which 

 arrangement not the slightest obstruction is offered to the 

 passage of the birds. The interest of this curious bower is 



