instead of on the ground. During the spring our little white-throat
(Sylvia cinerea) often rises a few feet or yards in the air above some
bush, and flutters with a fitful and fantastic motion, singing all the
while, and then drops to its perch. The great English bustard throws
himself into indescribably odd attitudes whilst courting the female, as
has been figured by Wolf. An allied Indian bustard (Otis bengalensis)
at such times rises perpendicularly into the air with a hurried
flapping of his wings, raising his crest and puffing out the feathers
of his neck and breast, and then drops to the ground; he repeats this
manoeuvre several times, at the same time humming in a peculiar tone.
Such females as happen to be near obey this saltatory summons, and
when they approach he trails his wings and spreads his tail like a
turkey-cock. (59. For Tetrao phasianellus, see Richardson, Fauna, Bor.
America, p. 361, and for further particulars Capt. Blakiston, Ibis,
1863, p. 125. For the Cathartes and Ardea, Audubon, Ornithological
Biography, vol. ii. p. 51, and vol. iii. p. 89. On the White-throat,
Macgillivray, History of British Birds, vol. ii. p. 354. On the
Indian Bustard, Jerdon, Birds of India, vol. iii. p. 618.)
[Fig. 46. Bower-bird, Chlamydera maculata, with bower (from Brehm).]
But the most curious case is afforded by three allied genera of
Australian birds, the famous Bower-birds, no doubt the co-descendants
of some ancient species which first acquired the strange instinct of
constructing bowers for performing their love-antics. The bowers (Fig.
46), which, as we shall hereafter see, are decorated with feathers,
shells, bones, and leaves, are built on the ground for the sole purpose
of courtship, for their nests are formed in trees. Both sexes assist in
the erection of the bowers, but the male is the principal workman. So
strong is this instinct that it is practised under confinement, and Mr.
Strange has described (60. Gould, Handbook to the Birds of Australia,
vol. i. pp. 444, 449, 455. The bower of the Satin Bower-bird may be
seen in the Zoological Society s Gardens, Regent s Park.) the habits of
some Satin Bower-birds which he kept in an aviary in New South Wales.
At times the male will chase the female all over the aviary, then go
to the bower, pick up a gay feather or a large leaf, utter a curious
kind of note, set all his feathers erect, run round the bower and
become so excited that his eyes appear ready to start from his head; he
continues opening first one wing then the other, uttering a low,
whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking up
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