something from the ground, until at last the female goes gently towards
him. Captain Stokes has described the habits and play-houses of
another species, the Great Bower-bird, which was seen amusing itself
by flying backwards and forwards, taking a shell alternately from each
side, and carrying it through the archway in its mouth. These curious
structures, formed solely as halls of assemblage, where both sexes
amuse themselves and pay their court, must cost the birds much labour.
The bower, for instance, of the Fawn-breasted species, is nearly four
feet in length, eighteen inches in height, and is raised on a thick
platform of sticks.
DECORATION.
I will first discuss the cases in which the males are ornamented either
exclusively or in a much higher degree than the females, and in a
succeeding chapter those in which both sexes are equally ornamented,
and finally the rare cases in which the female is somewhat more
brightly-coloured than the male. As with the artificial ornaments used
by savage and civilised men, so with the natural ornaments of birds,
the head is the chief seat of decoration. (61. See remarks to this
effect, on the Feeling of Beauty among Animals, by Mr. J. Shaw, in
the Athenaeum, Nov. 24th, 1866, p. 681.) The ornaments, as mentioned
at the commencement of this chapter, are wonderfully diversified. The
plumes on the front or back of the head consist of variously-shaped
feathers, sometimes capable of erection or expansion, by which their
beautiful colours are fully displayed. Elegant ear-tufts (Fig. 39) are
occasionally present. The head is sometimes covered with velvety down,
as with the pheasant; or is naked and vividly coloured. The throat,
also, is sometimes ornamented with a beard, wattles, or caruncles. Such
appendages are generally brightly-coloured, and no doubt serve as
ornaments, though not always ornamental in our eyes; for whilst the
male is in the act of courting the female, they often swell and assume
vivid tints, as in the male turkey. At such times the fleshy appendages
about the head of the male Tragopan pheasant (Ceriornis Temminckii)
swell into a large lappet on the throat and into two horns, one on each
side of the splendid top-knot; and these are then coloured of the most
intense blue which I have ever beheld. (62. See Dr. Murie s account
with coloured figures in Proceedings, Zoological Society, 1872, p.
730.) The African hornbill (Bucorax abyssinicus) inflates the scarlet
bladder-like wattle on its neck, and with its wings drooping and tail
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