DECORATION. 377 



"play-houses" of another species, the Great Bower-bird, which 

 was seen "amusing itself by flying backwards and forwards, taking 

 "a shell alternately from each side, and carrying it through the 

 "archway in its mouth." These curious structures, formed solely 

 as halls of assemblage, where both sexes amuse themselves and 

 pay their court, must cost the birds m.uch labor. The bower, for 

 instance, of the Fawn-breasted species, is nearly four feet in 

 length, eighteen inches In height, and is raised on a thick platform 

 of sticks. 



Decoration. — I will first discuss the cases in which the males 

 are ornamented either exclusively or in a much higher degree 

 than the females, and in a succeeding chapter those in which 

 both sexes are equally ornamented, and finally the rare cases in 

 which the female is somewhat more brightly-colored than the 

 male. As with the artificial ornaments used by savage and 

 civilized men, so with the natural ornaments of birds, the head 

 is the chief seat of decoration."' The ornaments, as mentioned 

 at the commencement of this chapter, are wonderfully diver- 

 sified. The plumes on the front or back of the head consist of 

 variously-shaped feathers, sometimes capable of erection or expan- 

 sion, by which their beautiful colors are fully displayed. Ele- 

 gant ear-tufts (see fig. 39, ante) are occasionally present. The 

 head is sometimes covered with velvety down, as with the pheas- 

 ant; or is naked and vividly colored. The throat, also, is some- 

 times ornamented with a beard, wattles, or caruncles. Such ap- 

 pendages are generally brightly-colored, and no doubt serve as 

 ornaments, though not always ornamental in our eyes; for whilst 

 the male is in the act of courting the female, they often swell 

 and assume vivid tints, as in the male turkey. At such times 

 the fieshy appendages about the head of the male Tragopan pheas- 

 ant (Ceriornis Temminckii) swell into a large lappet on the 

 throat and into two horns, one on each side of the splendid top- 

 knot; and these are then colored of the most intense blue which 

 I have ever beheld."^ The African hornbill (Bucoraz abyssinicus) 

 inflates the scarlet bladder-like wattle on its neck, and with its 

 wings drooping and tail expanded "makes quite a grand appear- 

 "ance."'" Even the iris of the eye is sometimes more brightly- 

 colored in the male than in the female; and this is frequently the 

 case with the beak, for instance, in our common blackbird. In 

 Buceros corrugatus, the whole beak and immense casque are col- 



«i See remarks to this effect, on the 'Feeling of Beauty among- Ani- 

 mals,' by Mr. J. Shaw, in the 'Athenaeum,' Nov. 24th, 1866, p. 681. 



"2 See Dr. Murie's account with colored figures in 'Proc. Zoolog. Soc' 

 1872, p. 730. 



"^ Mr. Monteiro, 'Ibis,' vol. iv. 1862, p. 339. 



