on the Gardener Boicer Bird.



159



“ who first discovered it! ! Editor] . There were also fungi and

“ mottled insects placed on the turf. As soon as the objects are

“ faded they are moved away.”


Mr. Sharpe says that the form of the playing-ground, as

given by Mr. Goodwin, is totally different from that sketched by

Dr. Beccari.


Fully adult males, with the orange crest, have been received

by Mr. Walter Rothschild, not only from Arfak, but from the Owen

Stanley Mountains in S.E. New Guinea.


There are at any rate two other species, which closely re¬

semble Amhlyornis inornata, and they are A. subalaris and A.

flavifrons ; the latter having been discovered in Dutch New Guinea,

but as our Magazine is for the aid and benefit of aviculturists and

not so much for those who sit on desks all day in Museums, peering

at skins flattened out, stuffed with antiseptic wool, minus eyes, and

with discoloured feet and beaks, I will not burden our members

with too many details of sub-species and inappropriate nomenclature.

I take it that the artistic side of bird-life appeals to them more

strongly ; along with, where possible, the gathering in of knowledge

from those who by experience are able to tell of the birds in life,

with their habits, their food, and their many interesting ways of

living. We do not decry Museums and bird-skins which are col¬

lected for scientific researches, it is merely that life appeals to us

more than death, that when the spirit of the bird has departed from

the body seeking pastures new, that bunch of feathers can no

longer attract us aviculturists, indeed more often than not we sit

down and weep ! It was the life we loved, the agility, the daily

cleansing of those feathers in bath and pool and stream, the call

notes and the songs ringing in our ears, the putting on and putting

off of many a coloured plume, the nesting and the broods, and all

that goes to make up life.


And so, although we must needs pay our debt of gratitude to

those who have collected as skins what we would fain have had as

pets, we aviculturists have our moments when we shrink from the

idea of killing : for honestly, had I been the first to look upon that

marvellous work of the Gardener Bower Bird, I know full well that

I could not have brought myself to shoot the builders of the huts



