A DICTIONARY OF BIRDS. 
197 
radiating from the central support, which is covered with a conical 
mass of moss, and sheltering a gallery round it. One side of this 
hut is left open, and in front of it is arranged a bed of verdant 
moss, bedecked with blossoms and berries of the brightest colours. 
As these ornaments wither they are removed to a heap behind the 
hut, and replaced by others that are fresh. The hut is circular, 
and some three feet in diameter, and the mossy lawn in front of it 
nearly twice that expanse. Each hut and garden are, it is believed, 
though not known, the work of a single pair of birds, or perhaps the 
male only; and it may be observed that this species, as its trivial 
name implies, is wholly inornate in plumage.* Not less remark¬ 
able is the more recently described ‘ bower ’ of Prionodura , a genus 
of which the male, like the Regent-bird, is conspicuous for his 
bright orange coloration. This structure is said by Mr. Devis 
(‘ Trans. Roy. Soc. Queensland,’ 14th June, 1889) to be piled up 
almost horizontally round the base of a tree to the height of from 
4 to 6 feet, and around it are a number of liut-like fabrics, having 
the look of a dwarfed native camp. Allied to the forms already 
named are two others, Scenopceus and Ailurcedus, which though not 
apparently building ‘ bowers,’ yet clear a space of ground some 8 or 
9 feet in diameter, on which to display themselves, ornamenting it 
‘ with tufts and little heaps of gaily tinted leaves and young shoots ’ 
(‘Ramsay, Proc. Zool. Soc.,’ 1875, p. 592). The former of them, 
which, according to Mr. Lumlioltz (‘ Among Cannibals,’ pp. 139, 
140,) covers a space of about a square yard with large fresh leaves 
neatly laid, and removes them as they decay, inhabits Queensland, 
and to the latter belongs the * Cat-bird,’ so well known to 
Australians from its loud, harsh, and extraordinary cries. 
“ By most systematists these birds are placed among the 
Paradiseida; but in the British 
Museum ‘ Catalogue of Birds’ (vi. 
pp. 380-396) they are to be found 
in the ‘ limbo large and broad ’ of 
Timeliida —though allowed the rank 
of a subfamily ‘ Ptilonorhynchince,’ 
the name being taken from the 
feathered and not the bare (as 
might from its etymology have been 
expected) condition of the base of 
the bill shown in the figure of that 
part in the Satin-bird.” 
Ptilorhynchus violaceus. 
(After Swainson.) 
* “ Another species referred to the same genus. A. subalaris, the female 
of which was originally described by Mr. Sharpe (‘ Journ. Linn. Soc.’ xvii. 
p. 40) as being still more dingy, turned out to have the male embellished with 
a wonderful crest of reddish-orange (Finsch and Meyer, ‘ Zeitschr. f. ges. 
Orn.,’ 1855, p. 390, tab. xxii.). 
September, 1893. 
