^'"'ig'i^' ] Cole, Nofes on the Satin Boiver-Bird. 237 



for their building place, and return year after year to the same 

 locality to nest. The egg of this species is considered to be 

 fairly rare by collectors, but I attribute this to the want of 

 knowledge of the nesting sites. The bird is plentiful enough. I 

 have never known more than two eggs to a clutch. About five 

 months, August to December, cover the breeding season ; I 

 have known eggs to be taken in both these months. Last 

 December, in Southern Gippsland, I found ten old nests, about 

 100 yards apart, along the slopes and bed of a creek. The 

 birds have built annually in this particular spot for some years 

 now, and a good many clutches have been taken by juvenile 

 collectors. 



I have kept the " Satin-Rird " in captivity for years, and have 

 had the opportunity of watching its change of plumage from 

 green to purplish-black. This change takes place in the male 

 birds only, and starts about the third or fourth year, the change 

 being extended over a period of three years, when the perfect 

 plumage is attained. The first sign of the coming change in the 

 young male is the darkening of the lunated markings on the 

 breast feathers and the tips of the feathers upon the neck and 

 back. The inner webbing of the spurious wing and tail feathers 

 also becomes darkened. When the change is taking place in 

 earnest, a large number of feathers will show purplish-black 

 upon the breast, abdomen, hind-neck, head, tail coverts, back, 

 median wing coverts, and humeral part of the wing, while other 

 feathers only partly show the change. The majority of feathers 

 upon the chin, throat, lower throat, fore-neck, and forehead turn 

 black in one moult ; while many of the under tail coverts and 

 the feathers on other parts of the body gradually turn, taking 

 fully three moults to become black. The flight feathers of the 

 spurious wing are the last to change. 



Upon dissecting specimens of the green-plumed birds, I found 

 that the female has the lunated markings of the breast feathers 

 darker than they appear in the immature male, and the eye is 

 of a richer sapphire-blue colour. 



Often I have been able to closely observe this bird in its wild 

 state, and find that as soon as the change of plumage takes 

 place in the males they become shy, seldom exposing them- 

 selves. The females keep them partly supplied with food. 

 With most birds that possess this "feeding" habit it is generally 

 the males that attend to the females, as in Wrens, Cuckoos, 

 Collared Crow-Shrikes, &c. Some years ago, in Eastern Gipps- 

 land, while sitting upon a fallen tree in the bed of a densely 

 wooded creek bordering an orchard, mj' attention was attracted 

 by hearing a bird make, every now and again, a soft purring 

 noise, besides mimicking other species. Creeping towards the 

 edge of the scrub, I saw a full-plumed male Satin Bower-Bird 

 basking in the sun upon the branch of a blackwood tree. The 



