The plumage of this species is remarkable.  A rich brown pervades the crown of the head, the ear-coverts and the throat, each feather being bordered by a narrow black line; and, on the crown, the feathers are small and tipped with silver gray.  The back of the neck is crossed by a beautiful, broad, light, rosy pink band of elongated feathers, so as to form a sort of occipital crest.  The wings, tail, and upper surface, are deep brown, every feather of the back, rump, scapularies, and secondaries, having a large round spot of full buff at the tip.  Primaries slightly tipped with white.  All the tail-feathers with buffy white terminations.  Under parts grayish white.  Flank-feathers zigzagged with faint transverse light brown lines.  Bill and feet dusky brown.  At the corner of the mouth the bare, thick, fleshy, prominent skin, is of a pinky flesh colour, and the irides are dark brown.

The rosy frill adorns the adults of both sexes:  but the young male and female of the years have it not.

Another species, the great bower-bird,[B] was probably the architect of the bowers found by Captain Grey during his Australian rambles, and which interested him greatly in consequence of the doubts entertained by him whether they were the works of a bird or of a quadruped,—­the inclination of his mind being that their construction was due to the four-footed animal.  They were formed of dead grass and parts of bushes, sunk a slight depth into two parallel furrows, in sandy soil, and were nicely arched above; they were always full of broken sea-shells, large heaps of which also protruded from the extremity of the bower.  In one of these bowers, the most remote from the sea of those discovered by Captain Grey, was a heap of the stones of some fruit that evidently had been rolled therein.  He never saw any animal in or near these bowers; but the abundant droppings of a small species of kangaroo close to them, induced him to suppose them to be the work of some quadruped.

[Footnote B:  Chlamydora nuchalis.]

Here, then, we have a race of birds whose ingenuity is not merely directed to the usual; ends of existence, self-preservation, and the continuation of the species, but to the elegancies and amusements of life.  Their bowers are their ball and assembly rooms; and we are very much mistaken if they are not, like places of meeting,

  For whispering lovers made.

The male satin bower-bird, in the garden at the Regent’s Park, is indefatigable in his assiduity toward the female; and his winning ways to coax her into the bower conjure up the notion that the soul of some Damon in the course of his transmigration, has found its way into his elegant form.  He picks up a brilliant feather, flits about with it before her, and when he has caught her eye adds it to the decorations.

  Haste, my Nanette, my lovely maid,
  Haste to the bower thy swain has made.