BOWER-BIRDS AND GARDENER-BIRDS—HOW BIRDS SHOW OFF—A MALAY
TRAP—CRIMSON COMPETITION—LOVE IN A TREE-TOP.
As we have seen in the last chapter, some nests of birds are very
wonderful buildings, but there are some birds which make much more
wonderful buildings than nests. These are the Bower-birds—a family allied
to that of our crows and starlings—whose habitat is Australia and some of
the adjacent islands. It includes a good many species, and all of them,
besides the nest, make another and quite different structure, which is
known as the “bower,” but for which “playground” or “garden” is, perhaps,
a better name. All three words, however, have something to commend them,
for not only do the birds play and sport in and about these rustic
buildings, and decorate them sometimes with leaves and flowers; but it
is here, also, that the sexes resort, to court and choose one another
before the more prosaic duties of matrimony begin. Whilst the nest,
therefore, is the nursery, this other structure may be looked upon as the
bower of bliss. Generally the birds make it of sticks, grasses, or other
materials belonging to the vegetable kingdom, but it differs in each
species, so the best way is to describe what it is like in a few of the
more salient instances. The Satin Bower-bird makes a sort of platform of
sticks, which it weaves together, so that they are firm enough for it to
run over. This is the floor of the bower, and now come the walls, which
are made of sticks too, but of another kind—long, flexible twigs, which
the bird places upright and opposite to one another, on the two longer
sides of the platform, which is somewhat oblong in shape. The thicker
ends of these twigs rest on the platform, or the ground on each side of
it, whilst the thin tips bend inwards till the two walls almost meet at
the top, to make a sort of vaulted thatched roof. The whole forms a sort
of rustic arbour, open at either end, so that the birds can run through
it. This they delight in doing, and in order that the sticks may offer no
obstruction as they dart along, they are careful, when minor twigs branch
off from them, to place them so that these point outwards. Having made
their bower, the next thing the birds do is to decorate it. Anything they
can find that is bright, or gaily-coloured, such as feathers, bleached
bones, snail-shells, leaves, flowers, etc., they pick up and bring to
their bower. The feathers, or flowers, they hang about the rustic walls,
whilst they drop the bones and shells in a heap outside each of the
entrances.
As the birds are always adding to these collections, and keep up and
repair their bowers from year to year, these curious, white, glistening
heaps grow and grow, until sometimes they are large enough to fill a
cart. Quite a number of birds—perhaps a dozen or more—come to play and
sport at these bowers, or summer-houses. They run through and in and out
and round about them, chasing one another, and having all manner of fun.
The cock of this species is a most beautiful bird, and it is here that he
shows off his glossy, blue-black body and velvety wings to the female,
who is of a sober green, and not nearly so handsome. It is because the
cock’s feathers are so smooth and shining, that he is called the Satin
Bower-bird. The female has not this satiny appearance, but, like other
ladies, she has to take her husband’s name. The size of the birds is
about that of a jackdaw—at least I have seen them in the gardens, and
they looked to me almost as large. Mr. Gould, speaking of the bower of
this bird, says: “It has now been clearly ascertained that these curious
structures are merely sporting-places in which the sexes meet, and the
males display their finery and exhibit many remarkable actions, and
so inherent is this habit, that the living examples which have, from
time to time, been sent to this country, continue it even in captivity.
Those belonging to the Zoological Society have constructed their bowers,
decorated and kept them in repair, for several successive years.” A
gentleman who kept these Bower-birds in captivity, writing to Mr. Gould,
says: “My aviary is now tenanted by a pair of satin-birds, which for the
last two months have been constantly engaged in constructing bowers. Both
sexes assist in their erection, but the male is the principal workman.
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, and he
continues opening first one wing and then the other, uttering a low
whistling-note, and seeming to pick up something from the ground, until
at last the female goes gently towards him, when, after two turns round
her, he suddenly makes a dash, and the scene ends.”
I forgot to say that Mr. Gould once found a stone native tomahawk,
amongst the heap of things that this bird had collected at its bower,
and when, in Australia, either a native or a white man loses anything
in the least ornamental—anything, in fact, that is not too heavy for a
Bower-bird to carry—the first thing he does is to go to all the bowers in
the neighbourhood, and see if it has been taken to any of them.
The Spotted Bower-bird is as beautiful, perhaps, as the last, and
its bower or sporting-place is a still more wonderful structure. Mr.
Gould describes it as considerably longer than that of the Satin
Bower-bird—three feet long sometimes—so that it is more like an avenue
than a bower. “Outwardly,” he says, “they are built of twigs, and
beautifully lined with tall grasses, so disposed that their heads nearly
meet” (others, however, who have seen them, say that they are much more
open at the top); “the decorations are very profuse, and consist of
bivalve shells, crania of small mammalia, and other bones, bleached by
exposure to the rays of the sun, or from the camp-fires of the natives.
Evident indications of high instinct are manifest throughout the whole
of the bower decorations formed by this species, particularly in the
manner in which the stones are placed within the bower, apparently to
keep the grasses with which it is lined fixed firmly in their places;
these stones diverge from the mouth of the run, on each side, so as to
form little paths, while the immense collection of decorative materials
are placed, in a heap, before the entrance of the avenue, the arrangement
being the same at both ends. In some of the larger bowers, which had
evidently been resorted to for many years, I have seen half a bushel of
bones, shells, etc., at each of the entrances.” Mr. Gould goes on to say
that he “frequently found these structures at a considerable distance
from the rivers, from the borders of which the birds could alone have
procured the shells, and small, round, pebbly stones,” and that “their
collection and transportation must, therefore, be a task of great labour.”
The “bower” or, rather, the little rustic village, made by the beautiful
Golden Bower-bird—a name which is as good as a description—is still more
wonderful than either of the other two; indeed it is like a fairy-tale
to read about it. This species chooses out two trees that stand near one
another, and round the trunk of each it piles up an enormous quantity of
small sticks and twigs, in the shape of a cone or pyramid. One of these
stick pyramids may be as much as six feet high, and bulky in proportion,
but the other is not nearly so large, standing only about eighteen inches
from the ground. Having reared the two pillars, as it were, the birds—for
several may join in the labour—proceed to arch over the space between
them. For this purpose they search out the long stems of creepers that
grow in the woods, and having fixed them, by an end, to the top of one
pile, stretch them tight, and trail them over the other, thus making a
covered walk between the two. Then they bring white moss, and festoon the
pillars with it, and into the leafy roof they weave clusters of green
fruit, like grapes, that hang down from it, so that it looks as if they
had trained a vine over a trellis. Yet still the birds are not satisfied.
All around the great central arbour they make little dwarf huts, or
wigwams, of the growing grass, bending the stems together till the ends
meet, and then thatching them over with a horizontal layer of twigs. When
all is finished, they chase each other through their trellised arbour
and round and round their little grassy wigwams—or “gunyahs” as they
are called by the natives—the males, all resplendent in their beautiful
golden plumage, glancing in and out amongst them, like so many little
suns.
But the wonder of these things goes on increasing, and at last we come to
the Gardener-bird, who, as its name implies, lays out a regular garden
with a lawn and flower-beds, and a summer-house in it, as well. The
lawn, however, is made of soft, verdant moss, and stuck about in it, at
various points, are the brightest blossoms and berries that the country
where the bird lives—which is New Guinea—can afford. As these wither,
the “gardener” takes them away, and brings new ones in their place. The
summer-house, which is about two feet high, is built of sticks round a
small tree, which projects through the top and makes a central support.
From this the walls radiate outwards, in the shape of a tent or wigwam,
and, to make them look smooth and pretty, they are all covered over
with orchid stems. On the top—either round the projecting tent-pole, or
over it—the birds put moss, arranging it in the form of a sugar-loaf.
At one side the wigwam is left open, and it is in front of the opening
that the lawn and flower-beds are placed. The birds can sit in their
tent, or summer-house, and look out at their garden, or walk about their
garden and look at their pretty summer-house; and if that is not romance
in animal life I am sure I do not know what is. The bird that does all
this is not very handsome itself, and this makes its appreciation of the
beauty of a garden and summer-house—which must be much the same as our
own—all the more remarkable. Signor Beccari, an Italian gentleman, was
the first to discover and describe the species, and he has made a drawing
of it and its garden, which may be seen in volume ix. of _The Gardener’s
Chronicle_, at p. 333. One can only hope that he did not “obtain,” as
they call it, any specimens—for to kill a creature that makes a garden
and looks after the flowers in it, taking them away when they wither and
bringing fresh ones in their stead, is, to my mind, to do something but
little short of murder. Perhaps if it watered them as well it really
would be thought wrong to take such a bird’s life: but where are we to
draw the line?
Many of these Bower-birds are wonderful mimickers, and can reproduce all
sorts of sounds so exactly that people in Australia are often taken in
by them. Mr. Morton, of Benjeroop, relates how a neighbour of his had
been driving cattle to a certain spot, and on his way back discovered a
nest in a prickly needle-bush, or hakea tree. While “threading the needle
branches after the nest (to take, that is destroy it, of course), he
thought he heard cattle breaking through the scrub, and the barking of
dogs in the distance, and at once fancied his cattle had broken away, but
could see no signs of anything wrong. He heard other peculiar noises, and
glancing at his dog, as much as to say, ‘What does it mean?’ he saw the
sagacious animal, with head partly upturned, eyeing a spotted Bower-bird,
perched in the next tree.”
The structures which we have been here considering are of so
extraordinary a nature, that they more arrest our attention than do those
special activities relating to courtship and matrimony, for the due
performance of which the birds have erected them. With all other species,
however, in which these rites are a special feature, the exact converse
is the case; or, rather, whilst a special place is sought out for their
indulgence, no structure in connection with them is made. In some few
cases, however, we perhaps see the beginnings of this. The male argus
pheasant, for instance, displays before the hen in a little open space in
the jungle, to which, in the breeding season, he day after day repairs,
and though he builds nothing, he is most assiduous in keeping this space
clear and clean, so that if a leaf or a twig, or anything else, gets into
it, he takes it up and drops it outside. So pronounced, indeed, is this
habit, that the Malays have learnt to take advantage of it to the birds’
destruction. They cut off a long shaving from the stem of a bamboo, and
tie one end of it to a peg, which they drive into the ground in the
centre of the clearing. Finding that an ordinary pull will not remove
the untidy-looking thing, the irritated bird at length seizes it with
his bill by the free end, and twisting his neck two or three times about
it, makes a violent spring backwards, with the result that he cuts his
throat, for the thin edges of the bamboo are almost as sharp as a razor.
The display, as it is called, of the argus pheasant is a most interesting
thing to see. The secondary quill feathers of the male are immensely
developed, and very beautifully and æsthetically ornamented with a row
of circular spots, so finely shaded that they stand out in perspective,
like a real ball, as though drawn by a clever artist. Under ordinary
circumstances these lovely ornaments are hidden, but when the wings are
expanded they make, together, a great circular shield, which is thickly
studded with them; and this starry firmament the male, when he wishes to
make an impression, offers suddenly and with _empressement_ to the gaze
of the female. The lower feathers meet together in front of the bird’s
head, so that, in order to judge of the effect he is making, he has to
thrust it between two of them, and thus peep out at the hen. At the
same time he fans his tail and elevates it, so that the two very broad
and very long plumes which it contains nod above the soft splendour of
the wings. To see several of these magnificent birds—as large almost,
at least in their then appearance, as peacocks—contending thus for the
favours of the female, must be a most magnificent sight, to be excelled
only, perhaps, by the similar rivalry of peacocks themselves in some
tiger-haunted jungle of India. Both these birds belong to a family which
is famous for displays of this sort. They are striking enough in our own
pheasant, which, however, comes originally from the East, and rise to a
maximum, at least in Europe, in the blackcock and capercailzie. I have
myself seen both these birds exhibiting to the females, in Norway.
The cock-of-the-rock offers another striking example of the importance
of courtship amongst birds. The male of this species is, from beak
to tail, of a deep orange, or, more beautiful still, of a brilliant
blood-red colour. From the beak one may well say, for this, to the very
tip, as well as the head itself, is covered with, or rather buried in, a
magnificent crescent-shaped crest, which, by obscuring the usual contour
of that region, gives a touch of _bizarrerie_ to a _tout ensemble_
sufficiently splendid. As in the case of the argus pheasant, a little
open space is selected, the mossy turf of which soon becomes pressed
smooth by the tramplings of the birds’ feet. In it the adorned males, to
the admiration of their more sombre-coloured lady-loves, dance and spring
about, engaging, from time to time, in fierce and valorous conflicts.
Whilst not in the ring, as one may say, the birds often fly from one to
another of the neighbouring trees, to the trunks of which they sometimes
cling, all in the greatest excitement. As in all other cases of the sort,
the females are supposed to accept, by preference, those males for their
husbands, whose plumage, when thus shown to advantage, creates the most
dazzling effect.
This is the theory of sexual selection by which Darwin accounts for
most of the very beautiful colours and markings throughout nature. But
though his arguments have never been shaken, whilst the evidence on
which they are based has been most effectively supplemented,[3] yet
naturalists, as a body, seem determined to ignore both the one and the
other, and to see in the most striking patterns and conspicuous hues,
a “protective resemblance” to the surrounding landscape, which, if it
really exist for any man, must be due rather to some personal cause, such
as strong imagination or weak eyesight—or a combination of the two—than
to any objective reality. There is no animal now, in fact, however
conspicuous it may be to the eye of the savage, that is not pronounced
almost invisible by some spectacled old gentleman or another, and I feel
confident myself that, were a red or blue lion to step off a public-house
and walk in full view down the street, it would be thought to “blend
wonderfully” with the houses on either side, by these thorough going
advocates of the protective theory. Darwin, however, who has pointed out
so many cases of assimilative colouring, all of which are accounted for
on his theory of natural selection, did not believe that the tiger or
zebra were protected in this way, nor would he, probably, have endorsed
the red lion.
It is amongst the birds of paradise, however—and especially in the
case of the great bird of paradise, the loveliest, perhaps, of
all—that we see the courting antics of birds exhibited, if not in their
greatest perfection, at least in their most overpowering beauty. Here
the gathering-place, instead of being on the ground, is amongst the
tree-tops, and a tree of a specially lofty kind is chosen, which, by
virtue of its spreading head and scantiness of foliage, is well adapted
for the purpose. Here, in the early morning, the birds assemble, and
the males, which alone possess those magnificent plumes, or, rather,
fountains of feathers, that spring from beneath the wings on either side,
display them now to the best advantage, elevating them, spreading and
shaking them out, and keeping them all the while in a state of quivering,
tremulous vibration. Amidst this soft and spray-like shower, tinted of a
soft mauve and a deep golden orange, the emerald feathers of the neck and
the pale, straw-coloured ones of the head, as the bird turns it excitedly
from side to side, gleam and sparkle, whilst the wings are raised and
opened, making, as it were, a basket out of which the plume-jets spring.
In the intervals between these exhibitions, the birds fly from branch
to branch of the wide-spreading tree-top, their plumes now trailing
behind them, and looking as beautiful, almost, in another way, as they
did just before when specially exhibited. Not that there is much order
in the birds’ performances, or, rather, it is order in disorder. Though
rivals, emulous of one another’s actions, yet each of them plays its
own independent part. No two, it is probable, out of, perhaps, a score
composing the assembly, acts in just the same way at just the same time,
and thus the whole space is filled, each moment, with a varied scene of
exquisite, ethereal loveliness.
Professor Wallace—who does not, however, as it would appear, speak from
personal knowledge—tells us that, “at the time of the bird’s greatest
excitement, the wings are raised vertically over the back, the head
is bent down and stretched out, and the long plumes are raised up and
expanded till they form two magnificent golden fans striped with deep
red at the base, and fading off into the pale brown tint of the finely
divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then overshadowed by
them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald-green throat forming
but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which waves above.
When seen in this attitude the bird of paradise really deserves its name,
and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful of
living things.” Nothing is said about the hens here, but in the following
description—the only one I know which comes from an eye-witness—they
play their part, as will be seen, and as I have no doubt they should
do in the other. The birds here seen belonged to another species of
the _paradiseidæ_—the red bird of paradise, I think, which is almost
as handsome, but of this I cannot be sure. “The two hens,” says Mr.
Chalmers, who was travelling in New Guinea, “were sitting quietly on a
branch, and the four cocks, dressed in their very best, their ruffs of
green and yellow standing out, giving them a handsome appearance about
the head and neck, their flowing plumes so arranged that every feather
seemed combed out, and the long wires (some curious shaftless feathers
characteristic of this family of birds) stretched well out behind, were
dancing in a circle round them. It was an interesting sight. First
one and then another would advance a little nearer to a hen, and she,
coquette-like, would retire a little, pretending not to care for any
advances. A shot was fired, contrary to our expressed wish; there was a
strange commotion, and two of the cocks flew away, but the others and
the hens remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance began and
continued long. As we had strictly forbidden any more shooting, all fear
was gone: and so, after a rest, the males came a little nearer to the
dark brown hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end, all six birds flew
away.”
There is not, it must be confessed, much power of description shown here,
but it is from life, and at any rate the birds are not killed—a very
redeeming point indeed.