SPOTTED BOWER-BIRD. 
headlong down, to make a dive, in. fact. On the wing they have the outlme of 
an Oreoica (Bell-bird), but their flight is much quieter, and with no wliirring of 
■ivuigs whatever. Their tail looks much shorter m flight that that of a Slirike- 
Thjush, and the appearance is darker than that of either of the foregomg species. 
The most usual notes heard resemble the ordinary harsh sounds produced 
by the White-browed Babbler, and in calling up Bower-Birds I have often 
brought Babblers in their place. But the male Bower-Bird, and also, I thmk, 
the female, is a great mimic, and reproduces to perfection the notes of many 
surrounding birds. All the same, he seems to have a preference for harsh 
somids, such as the alarm notes of the local Shrike-Thrush, Carter Honey-eater, 
White-browed Babbler, and the tremulous cries of young Hawks clamoui'ing 
for food. I have heard the male imitate the notes of Cracticus leucopterus 
to perfection, and, again, a female gave a perfect rendering of those of Cracticus 
picatus. . . . There w'as a point to be cleared up concerning the plumage of 
the female. In Hall’s ‘Key’—compiled largely from the British Museum Catalogue 
of Birds —^the female of C. maculata is said to have no hlac band, and as nothing 
is said to the contrary, in referring to the female of C. guttata, we may assume, 
too, that she m turn was thought to posesss no lilac band. [Memo. The 
B. M. possessed no females.] I shot a bird with this so-called lUac band. Upon 
dissection she proved to be a fully adult female. Whilst on this subject, 
let me repeat that the colour of this nuchal band is not hlac, but in these 
East Murchison birds of a vivid pink, with just a suspicion of silvery-hlac 
when viewed in certain lights. In the female it is much smaller than in the male.” 
Mr. Tom Carter confirmed this, and a colomed figure of a female was given 
in the Ibis, 1920, p. 499, pi. xrv., which was procured at the North-west Cape. 
H. L. White also recorded that he had received from various parts of 
Eastern Australia females with the lilac nape-bands, and also a female, 
C. orientalis, with a single pink feather at the back of the neck, and suggested 
that the females of C. maculata, C. guttata and C. orientalis when fully matured 
and breechng, sometimes assume the lilac neck-band. 
The discovery of this fine species is shrouded m mystery, as when Gould 
described it before he went to Austraha he did not know whence it came nor 
did he publish to w’hom he was indebted for the knowledge of it. As he later 
met with it himself in New South Wales that locahty has been selected as the 
tj'pe locahty. For geographical reasons he alone described another bird as 
a distinct species; the specimen regarded as the type in the British Museum 
is a ymmg bird, as it has no nape-band, and in this genus both male and female 
acquire the nape-band about the first moult, and this appears to have been 
overlooked until quite recently, when Jackson and Carter independently noted 
the fact that females had hlac nape-bands in this species. 
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