The romance of the animal world : $b Interesting descriptions of the strange & curious in natural history — John Shaqi
The romance of the animal world : $b Interesting descriptions of the strange & curious in natural historySelous, Edmund
Science
The romance of the animal world : $b Interesting descriptions of the strange & curious in natural history
Selous, Edmund
Animal behavior; Animals
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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