Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/247

 bestowed upon it (Pœphila mirabilis, the wonderful grass-finch), from the very brilliant display of colours which it presents, and the effect of which in a flock, as we have witnessed at Port Essington, is very striking. Of the many beautiful finches from other parts of the world, none equals this in variety and depth of colours, and it would be a great acquisition to the aviary. The bower birds form a group peculiar to Australia. The name is derived from their singular habit of constructing bowers of twigs for the sole purpose of courtship. These constructions, which are not used in any way as nests, are variously ornamented with feathers, shells, berries, and even bones, &c., carried there by the birds and arranged about the entrances. At Cape York and Port Essington, we have witnessed two kinds of bower birds at play in these remarkable sylvan edifices, and even in captivity—as we observed both in a private aviary in Sydney, and in the Gardens of the Zoological Society of London. Another kind, the well-known satin bird of the colonists, exhibits this, the most remarkable of its instinctive manifestations, if provided with the materials for the construction of a bower.

Not less than sixty-four honeysuckers are found in Australia. These vary in size from the well-known guild bird and leatherhead down to the diminutive little soldier, and agree in being furnished with brush-tipped tongues. Like the humming birds of America, they are popularly believed to live on the honey or nectar of flowers; but the usual food of both these families of birds is most unquestionably the insects in the flowers to which they resort, judging from the invariable contents of the stomach of all those we have examined. The Ptiloris paradisea, or rifle bird, is well known to collectors, being much prized on account of the metallic brilliancy of its plumage. Yet splendid though it be, two others much finer have lately been discovered in Australia. The larger of these (Pt. magnifica) had previously been known as an inhabitant of New Guinea. We were present at Cape York when the first Australian specimen was shot at Cape York, by Mr. Wilcox, of Hunter-street, in whose window it now may be seen. The smaller one, discovered in June, 1847, during the