44 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



of the three handsomest birds in Australia.' This rediscovery 

 on my part was announced in an official communication dated 

 from Herberton, 30th March 1889. 



"At the commencement of February of the same year, 

 Mr A. Meston, during his first exploration of Mount 

 Bellenden-Ker, procured a single specimen of a very hand- 

 some bird, which, at its receipt at the Museum on the 

 25th March, was pronounced to be a new bird, and, as such, 

 received the name of Meston's Bower-Bird {Corymbicola 

 mestoni) ; my discovery that it was only the full-plumaged 

 male of Newton's Bower- Bird {Prionodura neiotoniano), and 

 the specimens and written observations which I forwarded 

 in support of this conclusion not having been then received 

 in Brisbane. 



" These observations, as some others due to Mr Meston, 

 are to be found in a paper entitled, 'A Further Account of 

 Prionodura newtoniana' by C. W. de Vis, contained in the 

 sixth volume of the Proceedings of our Eoyal Society, and 

 may be fittingly quoted on this occasion: — 'Prionodura 

 is emphatically a Bower-Bird, Both its observers in 

 nature met with its bowers repeatedly, and agree in 

 representing them to be of unusual size and structure. 

 From their notes and sketches it would appear that the 

 bower is usually built on the ground between two trees, or 

 between a tree and a bush. It is constructed of small sticks 

 and twigs. These are piled up almost horizontally around 

 one of the trees in the form of a pyramid, which rises to a 

 height varying from 4 feet to 6 feet A similar pile of 

 inferior height — about 18 inches, is then built around the 

 foot of the other tree. The intervening space is arched over 

 with stems of climbing plants, the piles are decorated with 

 white moss, and the arch with similar moss, mingled with 

 clusters of green fruit resembling wild grapes. Through and 

 over the covered run play the birds, young and old, of both 

 sexes. A still more interesting and characteristic feature in 

 the playground of this bird remains. The completion of the 

 massive bower so laboriously obtained is not sufficient to 

 arrest the architectural impulse. Scattered immediately 

 around are. a number of dwarf, hut-like structures — 



