102 The Australian Satin Bird and the King Parrot. 



delicate deposit of pink or any other colour at the bottom of a 

 pond, I recommend them to bottle some of it for domestic use. 

 The sketches which illustrate this paper are from drawings by 

 my wife; the objects are all magnified 1750 linear. 



THE AUSTRALIAN SATIN BIRD AND THE 

 KING PARROT. 



BY " &N OLD BUSHMAN." 



The male Satin or Shining Bower Bird (Ptilonorynchus holo- 

 cericeus), with his silky, glossy, purple coat and bright blue 

 eye, is, perhaps, take it altogether, one of the most beautiful 

 birds in the Australian forest. But it is not so much on 

 account of the beauty of plumage that I bring this bird 

 before the notice of the reader, as to offer a few remarks 

 on those peculiar little structures called " bowers," which 

 these birds erect in certain places in the Australian bush 

 for the purposes of mutual recreation, and totally independent 

 of, and often at a considerable distance from, their nests. 

 These bowers are, I believe, built, and certainly are used 

 by more than one pair of birds. Like human edifices, they 

 do not appear all to have equal care bestowed upon their 

 construction, or equal taste shown in their decoration, and, 

 although uniform in their plan, I do not think that they 

 are equally so in their dimensions. They may, however, be 

 generally described as being in plan an oval, intersected at 

 either end by a wing, or entrance to it. The greatest width of 

 the oval is generally about eighteen inches, that of the wings 

 about eight inches at their points of junction with it. The floor 

 of the oval or bower, and of that portion of the wings imme- 

 diately adjoining it, is paved with small sticks, along either 

 external edge of which is built a little ridge composed 

 of sticks laid longitudinally, and forming, as it were, 

 two wall-plates. Into both of these wall-plates a com- 

 pact hedge of sticks is then inserted ; these on either 

 side inclining inwards, at about an angle of sixty degrees from 

 the actual covering of the bower, leaving a small space open 

 at the top, varying in size from one to two inches. These 

 sticks are longest in the centre of the bower, and are shortened 

 as they approach either wing. The wings widen as they recede 

 from the bower, and those forming their sides are placed further 

 apart ; these also incline inwards. The whole of the sticks 



