Touching this acquirement of the colouring which has given to this Bower-bird its very appropriate name, a most astounding statement has been made by the Director of the Zoological Gardens at Melbourne. He asserts "that the birds only come to their full plumage in old age," and that "they die off shortly after the change."[1] Such an idea is contrary to all our experience of bird-life, and is certainly disproved in the case of those males of the Satin Bower-bird which have assumed their full colouring in England.
In the true Finches (Fringillidæ), the methods of subduing the females are very varied; the Chaffinches and Saffron-Finches (Fringilla and Sycalis) are very rough wooers; they sing vociferously, and chase their hens violently, knocking them over in their flight, pursuing and savagely pecking them even on the ground; but when once the hens become submissive, the males change their tactics, and become for the time model husbands, feeding their wives from the crop, after the fashion of the Serins, and assisting in rearing the young.
Although the hens of Saffron-Finches (Sycalis flaveola and pelzelni) frequently pursue and peck unpaired cock birds, I do not think they ever kill them, as one cock will often kill another, by tearing back the scalp from the base of the beak; but I have known a cock S. flaveola to kill his wife, who had already brought up two families, because she was disinclined to continue her labours.
The Serins (Serinus) seem to depend chiefly upon their song to captivate their brides; there is often a little chasing and quarrelling on both sides, if the hen is not inclined to undertake marital duties; as soon as she is, she sits upon a perch quivering or flapping her wings, and with her head thrown backwards. You may notice the same thing with Sparrows and many other Finches after they have once paired; but the cock Sparrows have a regular dance, with drooped wings and erected tail, which I have observed in no other Fringillidæ, though there may be other typical Finches which dance to their mates.
The Buntings chase their partners violently, singing all the while, after the manner of the Saffron-Finches, but without the same spite; and on more than one occasion I have had males of
- ↑ A.T. Campbell's 'Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds,' p, 192, footnote.
