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42

Birds Chap. 13

"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 (245 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 assemblages, where both sexes amuse themselves and pay their court, must cost the birds much labour in their formation; for instance the bowers instance of the Fawn-breasted species, is nearly four feet in length, eighteen inches in height, and is raised on a very thick platform of sticks. They are formed solely as halls of assemblage, when the sexes, amuse themselves, perform their love-antics, and pay their court.

Decoration ─ I will first discuss the cases in which the males are ornamented, or are ornamented in a much higher degree than the females; and afterwards those in which both sexes are equally decorated ornamented, and finally the rare cases in which the female is rather somewhat more brightly-coloured than the male. As with the artificial ornaments used by savage and civilised races of men, so with the natural ornaments of birds,

[in margin in another hand:] "The Descent of Man" 1st edition vol 2 pp 70/71