434 THE DESCENT OF MAN, 



ready to start from his head; he continues opening first one 

 wing, 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 

 toward him." Capt. Stokes has described the habits and 

 '* play-houses" of another species, the great bower-bird, 

 wliicli was seen '' amusing itself by flying backward and 

 forward, taking a shell alternately from each side and 

 carrying it through the archway in its mouth." These 

 curious structures, formed solely as halls of assemblage, 

 where both sexes amuse themselves and pay their court, 

 must cost the birds much labor. The bower, for instance, 

 of the fawn-breasted species is nearly four feet in length, 

 eighteen inches in height, and is raised on a thick platform 

 of sticks. 



Decoration. I will first discuss the cases in which the 

 males are ornamented either exclusively or in a much 

 higher degree than the females, and in a succeeding 

 chapter those in which both sexes are equally ornamented, 

 and finally the rare cases in which the female is somewhat 

 more brightly colored than the male. As with the artificial 

 ornaments used by savage and civilized men so with the nat- 

 ural ornaments of birds, the head is tlie chief seat of 

 decoration.* The ornaments, as mentioned at the com- 

 mencement of this chapter, are wonderfully diversified. Tiie 

 plumes on the front or back of the head consist of variously- 

 shaped feathers, sometimes capable of erection or expan- 

 sion, by which their beautiful colors are fully displayed. 

 Elegant ear -tufts (see fig. 39, ante) are occasionally 

 present. The head is sometimes covered with velvety 

 down, as with the pheasant ; or is naked and vividly 

 colored. The throat, also, is sometimes )rnamented with 

 a beard, wattles or caruncles. Such appendages are gen- 

 erally brightly colored and no doubt serve as ornaments, 

 though not always ornamental in our eyes; for while the 

 male is in the act of courting the female they often swell 

 and assume vivid tints, as in the male turkey. At such 

 times the fleshy appendages about the head of tlie male 

 Tragopan pheasant ( Ceriornis Temminckii) swell into a large 



*See remarks to this eifect, on the "Feeling of Beauty Among 

 Animals," by Mr. J. Shaw, in the "Athenaeum," Nov. 24, 1866, p. 



