SATIN BOWER-BIRD. 31 
destroyed a bower and secreted himself, saw the birds engaged in 
the task of reconstructing it, these were females. _ With much care 
and trouble Mr. Gould succeeded in taking to England two fine 
specimens of these bowers, one of which he presented to the British 
Museum, and the other to the collection at Leyden. Dr. Ramsay 
states :—‘‘ The bower is composed of small sticks, twigs, &c., stuck 
upright in the ground, surrounded by a platform of sticks, and 
ornamented with land shells, bones of small animals, feathers, &c. 
These bowers are usually constructed beneath the lower undergrowth 
in thickly timbered mountainous parts of the country, and when 
near the settlers’ houses are often ornamented with pieces of broken 
china, glass, &e.” 
Nidification.—The nest of the satin bower-bird is built in the 
fork of a tree some distance away from the bower and not far from 
the ground. ‘Lhe bird constructs an open nest composed of twigs 
and sticks, and lined with grass. The eggs vary in proportionate 
length, but are usually long ovals, seldom even slightly swollen 
towards the thicker end; the ground colour is of a rich cream or 
light stone-colour, spotted and blotched with irregular patchy mark- 
ings, and a few dots of umber and sienna-brown of different tints, in 
some almost approaching blackish-brown, in others of a yellowish 
colour. he larger markings are as usual on the thicker end, but a 
few appear with the small dots on the thin end. Measurements :— 
1‘7 x 11 inches. 
Food.—It feeds on the berries of plants and shrubs, also on 
wild figs, which are produced by the enormous fig-trees which 
flourish in the brushes it inhabits. It plunders any ripening corn, it 
can meet with. It is granivorous and frugivorous, as insects form 
but a small portion of its diet. 
Where found.—In the brushes stretching along the coast of 
South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, aa Queensland ; 
localities, Rockingham Bay, Port Denison, Wide Bay district, 
Richmond and Clarence Rivers district, in the cedar brushes of the 
Liverpool Range, and in most of the gullies of the great mountain- 
chain separating the colony from the interior. It is fond of the 
giant fig-trees, towering to the height of 200 feet. There are speci- 
mens in the Melbourne Museum from the localities of the Upper 
Yarra and Goulburn rivers. Living birds have reached England, 
and some haye existed for years in the gardens of the Zoological 
Society, London. 


TASMANIAN Tiger—Thylacinus cynocephalus. 
Description.—The colonists bestowed various names on this 
marsupial—as tiger, hyena, zebra-opossum, zebra-wolf, dog-headed 
opossum. It is the most ferocious and powerful of the indigenous 
mammals of Australasia. Professor Owen says:—‘‘The marsvpial 
bones. as bones, do not exist in the dog-headed opossum, or hyzena of 
the Tasmanian colonists. They are represented by two small, 
oblong, flattended fibro-cartilages. The marsupial bones have been 
