The Cat-bird 129 



maculosiis), has been discovered during the last few years, 

 and the accompanying picture has been drawn from a 

 photograph which was sent to me by Mr. A. J. North, the 

 Curator of Ornithology in the Australian Museum. It will 

 thus be seen that these Cat-birds build a nest very much 

 like that of an English Jay. The one in question was 

 found by Messrs. Cairns and Grant in the Bellenden-Ker 

 Range in Queensland. It was placed in the fork of a 

 sapling about seven feet from the ground, and was a neat 

 bowl-shaped structure, composed of long twigs and leaves 

 of a Tristania, lined inside with twigs and the dried wiry 

 stems of a climbing plant. On the outside several nearly 

 perfect leaves of the Tristania were worked in, and partially 

 obscured one side of the nest. The nests of the Satin 

 Bower-bird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus), Regent-bird (Seri- 

 culus melinus), and Spotted Bower-bird (Chlamydodera 

 maculata), have also been discovered, and they are similar 

 in structure to that of the Cat-bird here figured. The eggs 

 are of a reddish buff or stone-colour, and resemble in tint 

 those of the Birds of Paradise and Rifle-birds, to which the 

 Bower-builders are so nearly allied that many ornithologists 

 consider them to belong to the same family. 



The Satin Bower-bird is the best known of these feathered 

 architects, especially in this country, where, even in confine- 

 ment in the Zoological Gardens, the birds construct their 

 arbours of sticks. The male of the Satin Bower-bird 

 (p. 117) is glossy black, and the female green. 



The accompanying photograph illustrates the bower of 

 P. violaceus, and has been photographed by Mr. A. J. 

 North. It shows a bower found near the Jerulan Caves in 

 New South Wales in October 1898. How that grand old 

 naturalist, John Gould, would have revelled in these faithful 

 pictures of the haunts of his beloved Australian birds ! 

 In his collecting days there was no photography to aid 

 him in portraying his jungle-pictures, and his coloured 



K 



