256 THE PORT DARWIN DISTRICT 



speckled with grey or dull brown. One or two species 

 lay eggs which are not spotted. 



They do not all make playhouses. Two varieties 

 clear open spaces in the bush which may be as much as 

 twelve or fourteen feet in diameter, and on these twenty 

 or thirty birds often meet to parade or " dance," appar- 

 ently for amusement. The cocks of one species amuse 

 themselves with building spare nests which are never used 

 for breeding purposes. At least six species make play- 

 houses ; and no person who has watched the antics of the 

 birds when assembled at these can doubt that amusement 

 is the sole object of the little creatures in constructing 

 them. 



The playhouses in the Port Darwin district were made 

 of small twigs set very close together, and sloped so 

 that the tops just met at a height of twenty inches. 

 Inside, the house was lined with fine grasses, roots, and 

 filaments of a kind of cotton procured from a species of 

 Bombax which grows in the neighbourhood. There were 

 also a few brightly coloured feathers interwoven in the 

 lining ; and the sides of the house were so compact that 

 the birds could not be seen when running through it. 

 Hundreds of small shells were strewn about the floor of 

 the house and on the ground near it, covering an area of 

 six or seven square yards. Some of these shells were 

 marine, and supposing them to have been brought from a 

 river estuary they had been fetched from a distance of at 

 least a hundred miles. But they might have been brought 

 from other playhouses, and so have gradually found their 

 way up the country. The feathers, few in number, were 

 all those of parrots, red, green, blue, and yellow in colour. 



There were houses in an unfinished state about this 

 country, but I could never surprise the birds at work 

 upon them, and I do not know if a house is the work of 

 one or of several birds. Probably the latter is the case, 

 as sometimes several birds play about the same house, 

 chasing each other through it, fluttering their wings, 

 uttering lively cries, and occasionally flying in a flock 

 over the structure, which here was thirty inches long and 



