6o



Mr. R. Phiixipps,



of another species, but each takes a sort of family interest in the

sayings and doings of those of its own clan.


But it cannot be that they breed promiscuously. It would

be grievous to think that the Regent could ever sink to the level

of Molothrus ; and we know that the female attends to her own

eggs and young. The devotion of my mother Regent was almost

phenomenal; and even now that the surviving youngster is

almost as an old bird the bond of union between the two is a good

and pleasant thing to behold. But may not this consuming fire in

the breast of the female eventually burn itself out, and the

mother, after the lapse of generations, worn out in providing food

for the young—small wonder that the normal number is but two

—and, perhaps, in some seasons or when growing feeble, actually

unable to provide a sufficiency, be tempted one day to drop her

egg into the nest of some other bird and so in course of time

become parasitic? Peradveuture the Bower-birds have saved the

situation by reducing the clutch from some higher number to

its present sober dimensions. All the Bower-birds, Cat-birds

(. EEluroedus ), and I may include the Rifle-birds, seem to lay—

some only one egg, the more part two, a few occasionally three

as a maximum number. I observe that Mr. Campbell’s Nests and

Eggs mentions at page 1074 that the female Rifle-bird seems to

do all the work of attending to the nest without assistance from

the male ; and probably the same rule prevails among the Bower-

birds and Rifle-birds generally.


The Regent Bird, in our cold climate, is not so industrious

a builder of bowers as the Satin-bird, and is most busy in our

autumn, the Australian spring; and the best bowers are con¬

structed in very secluded spots, carefully hidden away under the

thickest undergrowth, and will be repaired and resorted to year

after year if still well concealed, and if not ruined by bad weather,

for a sodden bower disgusts the Regent ; unlike the Satin-bird,

the old male will not place a true bower under a shed or in the

open. Should its shelter be impaired or removed from any cause,

it would be deserted and shortly pulled to pieces. It is a much

smaller affair than that of the Satin-bird.


As I pointed out in May, 1901, the bowers built by my

birds usually had a saucer-like “nest” in the centre of the so-



