PTILONORHYNCHUS VIOLACEUS. 



SATIN B0WEE-B1RD. 



PYRRHOCORAX VIOLACEUS, Vieill. Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat. torn. vi. p. o69 (1816).— Id. Ency. Method. (1823) p. 896. 



PTILONORHYNCHUS HOLOSERICEUS, Kuhl, Beytr. zur Zool. (1820) p. 150— Wagl. Syst. Av. (1827) sp. 1. — G. R. Gray, Gen. Birds, 

 vol. ii. p. 325— Gould, Birds of Austr. vol. iv. pi. 10— Swain. Class. Birds (1827), p. 271.— Gray, List Gen. Birds (1855), p. 65.— 

 Gould, Handb. Birds Austr. (1865) vol. i. p. 442.— Ramsay, Ibis (1866), p. 330.— Sclat. Wolf's Zool. Sketch., 2nd Ser. pi. xxviii. 



SATIN GRAKLE, Lath. Gen. Hist. Birds (1822), vol. iii. p. 171. 



PTILONORHYNCHUS SQUAMULOSUS, Wagl. Syst. Av. (1827) sp. 2. 



KITTA HOLOSERICEA, Temm. Plan. Col. vol. ii. pis. 395, 442.— Less. Trait. d'Orn. (1831) pi. xlvi. fig. 1. 

 PTILONORHYNCHUS M'LEAYI, Vig. & Horsf. Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xv. p. 263. 

 PTILORHYNCHUS HOLOSERICEUS, Cab. Mus. Hein. (1850) Theil i. p. 213. 



Hab. Port Denison, New South Wales (Ramsay). 



The Bower-birds are remarkable for the peculiar habit of constructing covered ways, in which they perform 

 strange antics, and from which .they derive their popular name. Mr. Gould was the first ornithologist to give 

 publicity to these customs, and published them in his work upon the Australian birds ; and as the accounts of an 

 eye-witness are always those most desired, I here insert what he has related concerning this species : — " The localities 

 frequented by the Satin Bower-bird are the luxuriant and thickly foliaged brushes stretching along the coast from 

 Port Philip to Moreton Bay, and the cedar-brushes of the Liverpool range. So far as is at present known, it is 

 restricted to New South Wales ; certainly it is not found so far to the westward as South Australia, and I am not 

 aware of its having been seen on the north coast ; but its range in that direction can only be determined by future 

 research. 



"It is a stationary species, but appears to roam from one part of a district to another, either for the purpose 

 of varying the nature, or of obtaining a more abundant supply of food. Judging from the contents of the stomachs 

 of the many specimens I dissected, it would seem that it is altogether frugivorous, or if not exclusively so, that 

 insects form but a small portion of its diet. Independently of numerous berry-bearing plants and shrubs, the brushes 

 it inhabits are studded with enormous fig-trees, to the fruit of which it is especially partial. It appears to have 

 particular times in the day for feeding, and when thus engaged among the low shrub-like trees, I have approached 

 within a few feet without creating alarm ; but at other times the bird was extremely shy and Avatchful, especially 

 the old males, which not unfrequently perch on the topmost branch or dead limb of the loftiest tree in the forests, 

 whence they can survey all around, and watch the movements of their females and young in the brush below. In 

 the autumn they associate in small flocks, and may often be seen on the ground near the sides of rivers, particularly 

 where the brush descends in a steep bank to the water's edge." 



"The extraordinary bower-like structure alluded to in my remarks on the genus, first came under my notice in 

 the Sidney Museum, to which an example had been presented by Charles Coxen, Esq., of Brisbane, as the work 

 of the Satin Bower-bird. This so much astonished me that I determined to leave no means untried for ascer- 

 taining every particular relating to this peculiar feature in the bird's economy ; and on visiting the cedar-brushes 

 of the Liverpool range, I discovered several of these bowers or playing-places on the ground, under the shelter 

 of the branches of overhanging trees, in the most retired part of the forest. They differed considerably in size, some 

 being a third larger than others. The base consists of an extensive and rather convex platform of sticks, 

 firmly interwoven, on the centre of which the bower itself is built. This, like the platform on which it is 

 placed, and with which it is interwoven, is formed of sticks and twigs, but of a more slender and flexible 

 description, the tips of the twigs being so arranged as to curve inwards and nearly meet at the top ; in the 

 interior the materials are so placed that the forks of the twigs are always presented outwards, by which 



