With one of the disgusting carrion-vultures (Cathartes jota) the same naturalist states that "the gesticulations and parade of the males at the beginning of the love-season are extremely ludicrous." Certain birds perform their love-antics on the wing, as we have seen with the black African weaver, 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 bead; he continues opening first one wing then the other, uttering a low, whistling note, and, like the domestic cock, seems to be picking up 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.