86 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
April, 1922 
to bring food to the nestlings; in fact, to all appearances 
they were merely casual visitors. 
Those two little Bower-birds are still with us. They 
are in a specially built enclosure, and are detained only 
for the purpose of proving whether the species takes up 
mimicry without the parent’s tuition or not, and also 
whether it is one of their accomplishments for one to drop 
bones from the air for its companion to catch. With these 
matters in particular solved, we hope to allow them absolute 
freedom. They are now seven months old, are fully 
fledged, but still lacking those pretty little pink crest 
feathers peculiar to the matured birds. They show deep 
Young Bower-birds; just after leaving nest. 
(These birds are now being studied in captivity.) 
[Photos by D. W. Gaukrodger. 
interest in every sound and movement that occurs about 
them, but so far have made no attempt at mimicry. 
They relish every kind of food that is given them, and 
enjoy regularly a midday bath; consequently, they are 
both sleek and healthy, dust recently they have started 
to amuse themselves by hopping and playing about their 
enclosure with sheep vertebrae bones, shining tins, and 
coloured glass ; and just as I finish these notes one is busy 
entertaining its mate (and, incidentally, annoying me) by 
persistently tingling a little sheep-bell that their attendant 
has attached to one of their perches, with the object of 
encouraging them in their frivolity. 
