BIRDS. 229 
being so arranged as to curve inwards and nearly meet at 
the top : in the interior of the bower the materials are so 
placed, that the forks of the twigs are always presented 
outwards, by which arrangement not the slightest ob- 
struction is offered to the passage of the birds. The inter- 
est of this curious bower is much enhanced by the manner 
in which it is decorated at and near the entrance with the 
most gaily-coloured articles that can be collected, such as 
the blue tail-feathers of the Rose-hill and Pennantian 
parrots, bleached bones, the shells of snails, &c. ; some of 
the feathers are stuck in among the twigs, while others 
with the bones and shells are strewed about near the en- 
trances. The propensity of these birds to pick up and fly 
off with any attractive object, is so well known to the 
natives, that they always search the runs for any small 
missing article, as the bowl of a pipe, &c., that may have 
been accidentally dropped in the brush. I myself found 
at the entrance of one of them a small neatly-worked 
stone tomahawk, of an inch and a half in length, toge- 
ther with some slips of blue cotton rags, which the birds 
had doubtless picked up at a deserted encampment of the 
natives. For what purpose these curious bowers are 
made is not yet, perhaps, fully understood ; they are cer- 
tainly not used as a nest, but as a place of resort for many 
individuals of both sexes, which, when there assembled, 
run through and around the bower in a sportive and 
playful manner, and that so frequently, that it is seldom 
entirely deserted." 
