jan., 1921 lThe Queensland Naturalist. liy 
fulness, which distinguish them from recent and more 
iiighly organised trees, were characteristics predominant 
in a past era. 
BOWERS AND PLAYGROUNDS. 
By A. II. Chisholm, State Secretary R.A.O.U. 
“Without exception,” wrote the late Mr. A. J. North, 
(^MJLO.U., ”the bower- building birds of Australia are the 
most extraordinary group of birds found in the world,” 
Accepting this as a well-founded statement, Queenslanders 
should take pride in the fact that this State is richer than 
any other part of the Commonwealth in these remarkable 
birds and their affinities; of twelve species acknowledged 
by the Check List of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ 
Union as members of the family Ptilonorynchidae, all but 
two have been recorded for Queensland, and no less than 
eight are either confined to this State or extend only a 
short distance from its borders. 
And yet, in spite of their opportunities and of the 
fascination of the subject, it is a fact that Queenslanders 
generally are doing little towards the study of this family 
of birds. For instance, it was left to southerners to give 
us full information regarding the nidification and the 
remarkable playgrounds of the Tooth-billed Bower-Bird 
iScenopmetes dentirostris) , of North Queensland : and even 
to this day we have no published records as to whether the 
Cat-Birds ( Ailuropxlus) follow the Tooth-bill or the Bower- 
Birds proper in the matter of '‘play-houses.” There are 
two species in the genus Ailurcexlus, one {A. rnaculosus, the 
Spotted Cat-Bird) being confined to North Queensland, 
and the other (A. smiihi) being the common Cat-Bird 
of the jungles of South Queensland and Northern New 
South Wales. Only the latter species was known up to 
the time John Gould published his supplementary Hand- 
bool' (1865) to the Birds; of Australia, and of this the 
great birdman wrote: “While in the district in which this 
bird is found, my attention was directed to the acquisition 
of all the information I could obtain respecting its habits, 
as T considered it very probable that it might construct a 
bower similar to that of the Satin-Bird; but I could not 
satisfy myself that it does, nor could I discover its nest, 
or the situation in which it breeds.” 
