on the Regent Bird.



55



distant. Out of sight out of mind, some other bird attracts

our attention for the moment—and I look towards the spot

where he had been but he has vanished. He had been in a

sort of cul-de-sac, we had been standing at the entrance, and

yet he had got clear away without attracting the attention of

either of us. Now he would have had to fly some sixteen feet

before he could get round the corner of the house, passing close

behind us, and another seventeen feet before gaining the shelter

of the birdroom ; and yet so cunningly does he go off that he

hardly ever betrays himself.


If this be the nature of a bird which has been over six

years in my possession, and which with me is tame, how much

more may we not expect these traits to be accentuated in the

character of the wild male! And may we not have a clue here

to the alleged scarcity of fully feathered males compared with

the number of those which are observed, or supposed to be

observed, in immature feather?


To digress a little. May not the supposed rarity of fully

black Satin-birds be accounted for in a similar manner ? Mr. Re

Souef says (Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds , p. 192), “It is,

therefore, evident that the birds only come to their full plumage

in old age, and that accounts for the fact that in a flock of say

one hundred birds, which we often used to see at Gembrook,

some years ago, there would be only a very few, not half-a-dozen

black ones among them. They die off shortly after the change.”

As I inferred in May, 1901, Mr. Le Souef’s hypothesis is difficult

of acceptance. The male Satin-bird is bold, and with me did

not instinctively hide away after the manner of the male Regent;

nevertheless he is a tricky cunning bird, his blue-black plumage

very readily lends itself to concealment either in bush or scrub ;

and it is much more probable that the black birds lie close after

a manner like to that about to be related of the Regent than to

suppose (to quote Dr. A. G. Butler) that they “ put on black

clothing in preparation for their own funerals.”


To state the case a little bluntly, however it may be with

the Satin-bird, the fully feathered male Regent is comparatively

rarely seen for the simple reason that he is far cleverer than are

the ruthless specimen collectors who seek to murder him for the



