Western Australian Birds. 
77 
1921.] 
it might breed, but I saw no more of it, or any others, during 
the eleven years that I afterwards lived in that district. 
After thirteen years’ absence, I was again at the same 
part of the ranges where I had shot the first Bower-bird, 
and on 6 August, 1916, Mr. A. Campbell, who now resides 
there, and myself were searching some of the deep rugged 
gullies of the ranges, where clumps of thick scrub, and large 
wild fig-trees grow in patches, when a thick-set bird was 
seen perched in tall bushes ahead of us. I shot it, and 
found it to be one of the long lost Spotted Bower-birds. 
Then we noticed two nests, about twenty feet from the 
bottom of the gully,in a small tree (“Eel-bya”),and Campbell 
climbed up to examine them. Directly he reached them, 
another Bower-bird perched in the tree a few feet above 
his head, and I asked him to turn his face away so that I 
could shoot it, which I promptly did without doing him any 
damage. He called down to me that one nest was very old 
and dilapidated, and that the other one was empt} 7 " ; so I asked 
him to descend and let me climb up and examine them, while 
he stood below with the *410 gun. Just as I was near the 
nests,, Mr. Campbell called out : “Another of them has just 
settled above your head, shall I shoot it? ” ; and as my back 
was towards him, I replied, “Shoot away,” and a third 
bird fell. As Campbell was picking it up, it uttered a harsh 
cry, and a fourth bird appeared in the bushes where we had 
seen the first, and that was also secured. The whole affair 
only lasted a few minutes, and we were both considerably 
excited. The only bird that uttered any sound was the 
third one, as mentioned above. Both the nests were similar 
in structure, being about ten inches in diameter, and made 
entirely of sticks, with small twigs for lining material. 
The nesting cavity was shallow in the better of the two, and 
nearly filled with birds’ droppings and some fallen leaves. 
It had probably been used a few months previously, and I 
think undoubtedly, by a pair of these birds. When skinning 
the specimens later in the day, three were found to be females, 
and none of them showed any indications of breeding. 
They had been feeding on small round berries and leaves 
