308 BIRD BEHAVIOUR 



Penguins, which usually live where there are no 

 men at all, looks as if, in the absence of human 

 civilization, and the presence of easy means of 

 living, the birds do their best to become civilized 

 themselves. 



There are several gradations in this instinct of 

 bower-building, the simplest form of it being seen 

 in the Tooth-billed Bower-bird (Sceno'pceus denti- 

 rostris) which simply carpets a patch of ground with 

 large green leaves, and the most elaborate that of 

 Newton's Bower- bird (Prionodura newtoniana), which 

 builds an extraordinary avenue of sticks, higher on 

 one side than the other, which it decorates with 

 white flowers only; the placing of these flowers 

 is the prerogative of the old cocks, which are 

 often brought to blows by the action of one in 

 removing a decoration which another has set up, 

 while the hens and young birds simply look on and 

 applaud. The smaller and simpler avenues of the 

 Satin Bower-bird (Ptilonorbynchus holosericeus) and 

 of the Spotted Bower-bird (Chlamydodera maculata) 

 have long been well known, and that of the former 

 used usually to be on view at the Zoo under the 

 old management. 



The Satin-bird decorates with everything it can 

 get, with a preference, as remarked previously in 

 this book, for blue ; the Spotted Bower-bird has a 

 special preference for bones and shells, and its 

 bower looks like a badly-arranged local museum. 

 The Gardener-birds (Amblyornis) build structures 

 like little huts, with a sort of garden outside, in 



