BOWER BUILDER. 229 



its hind-quarters, defends itself with great vigour, striking with 

 its powerful claws, and using one arm to support itself, while it 

 strikes with the other. In extreme cases it throws itself upon 

 its back, and endeavours to hug its assailant in a close embrace, 

 when its immense muscular power enables it to overcome the 

 most active of its foes. It is said that even the jaguar has been 

 found dead, locked in its arms. 



The Anteater had been no great while in occupation of its 

 comfortable quarters before it was joined by a companion from 

 its native forests, and for a time they throve so well that hopes 

 were entertained of their surviving the winter, and so becoming 

 established as stock " lions " of the establishment. But these 

 hopes were speedily disappointed, and before long both animals 

 fell to the knife of Professor Owen. 



The Australian continent is scarcely more singular in respect 

 to its native mammalia than in regard to its peculiar birds. It is 

 indeed altogether a land of contrarieties, and the astonishment 

 which years ago greeted the first intelligence of its black swans, 

 and its trees which annually shed their bark instead of their 

 leaves, has been renewed with almost every fresh addition to our 

 knowledge of its natural history. 



In the New Aviary " new," that is, on the same principle 

 that Charlie, a strapping fellow of four years old, is still " baby," 

 because there is no newer there are some of these Australian 

 birds, which, although they have long since ceased to be novelties, 

 are well worthy of attention. In the first place, here is that 

 curious feathered architect, the Satin Bower Bird (Ptilono- 

 rhyncus holosericeus"), which claims kindred with our common 

 crow, and makes good its claim by a strong family likeness. The 

 bowers which these birds construct are formed of two parallel 

 rows of slender twigs, which curve inward, and nearly meet at 

 the top, and which are so artfully arranged that all the projecting 

 points and bifurcations are turned to the outside of the avenue, 

 and a perfectly unobstructed thoroughfare left within. The 

 walls of these curious structures rise from a broad platform of 

 sticks and twigs, closely interwoven and compacted together, 

 which thus forms the floor of the bower, and imparts to it a con- 

 siderable degree of firmness and stability. So far as is yet 

 known, the only purpose for which these bowers are constructed 

 is that of a playground, in which the birds continually amuso 



