We Were
In No Hurry To Get Back To The Township, So Purposed Having Supper Where We
Were, And Pulling Back In The Cool Of The Evening, By The Light Of The
Moon, Which Was Just Then In Full Glory.
We found plenty of traces of the
blacks, the embers of their fires even still glowing, but they had
Carried
off everything with them, and no trophies crowned our search of Gould
Island; and yet I am wrong, for I got one memento, which I have by me
still, and which is so curious to lovers of natural history that I am
tempted to describe it. In rummaging about, I came to a place strewed with
old bones, shells, parrots' feathers, etc., close to which stood a platform
of interwoven sticks. I was terribly puzzled at first to account for the
presence of this miniature rag and bone depot, and my astonishment culminated when Ferdinand informed me that -
"Bird been make it that fellow; plenty d - d thief that fellow, steal like it pipe, like it anything."
It then flashed across me that I had fallen in with the "run" of the
bower-bird, of which I had so often heard, and had so often sought for
without success.
The satin bower-bird ('Ptilonorhynchus holosericus') belongs to the family
of starlings, and though tolerably common in New South Wales, is but a rare
visitor to the hotter climate of Northern Queensland. The plumage of the
adult male is of a glossy satin-like purple, appearing almost black, whilst
the females and the young are all of an olive-greenish colour.
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