ANIMAL ESTHETICS 



405 



being emitted in a stream, like a drum-roll, while the leader 

 utters loud single notes at regular intervals. The march ceases; 

 the leader elevates his wings and stands erect and motionless, 

 still uttering loud notes; while the other two, with puffed-out 

 plumage and standing exactly abreast, stoop forward and down- 

 ward until the tips of their beaks touch the ground, and, sinking 

 their rhythmical voices to a murmur, remain for some time in 

 this posture. The performance is then over, and the visitor 



Fig. 1283. — Dance of Spur-winged Lapwing?; [Hoph^picriis cayanus) 



goes back to his own ground and mate, to receive a visitor 

 himself later on." 



As to the third kind of artistic development, placed under 

 the head of Decoration, we once more find among Birds the 

 best illustrations. Their nests not only exemplify, in some cases, 

 the art of building carried to a high pitch of perfection (see 

 vol. iii, p. 457), but may also involve a certain amount of deco- 

 rative skill. Both, however, are most strikingly seen in the 

 curious "runs" made by the Bower-Birds, native to the Austra- 

 lian region. They appear to play some part in courtship, and 

 their original discoverer, Gould, describes them as follows (in 

 P.Z.S. 1840): — "These constructions are perfectly anomalous 

 in the architecture of birds, and consist in a collection of pieces 

 of stick or grass, formed into a bower; or one of them (that 



Vol. IV. 



121 



