140



On the Silky Cow-Bird.



stood looking on ; now they are gradually losing their fear

and nervousness, are much more interesting, and I should be

sorry to lose them : at the same time I am bound to confess they

will not tolerate strangers, darting off at once to the darkest

corner of the aviary, or dashing wildly about.


The female is full of life and vivacity, her caudal append¬

age being a very fair example of perpetual motion on the ground ;

it is mostly jerked up and down, but after a short flight, when

she alights on the branches, it is mostly jerked from side to side,

the feathers being spread slightly fanwise.


In the male I have only noticed the tail jerked up and

down ; his song when making love is loud and shrill, the notes

being very rapidly repeated ; at the same time he swells himself

out, causing the feathers round the neck to stand out almost

straight, drops his wing to the ground, expands the tail feathers

fanwise, drags these and the wings along the ground, and booms

rather than sings several of his notes while doing so, then takes

flight the length of the aviary away from the female, after which

he circles round her, at times appearing to hover in front of her,

uttering his notes incessantly the while, then to the ground and

the whole process is repeated again and again.


About two months before the male got over his trouble, the

female commenced bullying him, to such an extent that I feared

she would kill him, pulling out the feathers from the lores and

stripping off those from the forehead, he screaming piteously the

while ; my people named them Mr. and Mrs. Heupeck. After

about a month of this bickering, they patched up their differ¬

ences, and began courting again. Shortly after I found she had

built a nest (I saw her finishing it, the male supplying material

and looking on) in a large log provided for my Cockateels, put¬

ting in for a foundation small tufts of grass with earth attached,

arranging on the top of this a loose structure of small sticks and

bents similar to that of our Starling ; no eggs were laid.


In their native wilds they are gregarious, quite a number

will frequently be seen perched on the back of a cow or horse ;

as the animal grazes, they follow closely and snap up the insects

exposed; they also follow the plough in the spring for the

same purpose.



