The romance of the animal world

by Edmund Selous

But the wonder of these things goes on increasing, and at last we come to the Gardener-bird, who, as its name implies, lays out a regular garden with a lawn and flower-beds, and a summer-house in it, as well. The lawn, however, is made of soft, verdant moss, and stuck about in it, at various points, are the brightest blossoms and berries that the country where the bird lives—which is New Guinea—can afford. As these wither, the “gardener” takes them away, and brings new ones in their place. The summer-house, which is about two feet high, is built of sticks round a small tree, which projects through the top and makes a central support. From this the walls radiate outwards, in the shape of a tent or wigwam, and, to make them look smooth and pretty, they are all covered over with orchid stems. On the top—either round the projecting tent-pole, or over it—the birds put moss, arranging it in the form of a sugar-loaf. At one side the wigwam is left open, and it is in front of the opening that the lawn and flower-beds are placed. The birds can sit in their tent, or summer-house, and look out at their garden, or walk about their garden and look at their pretty summer-house; and if that is not romance in animal life I am sure I do not know what is. The bird that does all this is not very handsome itself, and this makes its appreciation of the beauty of a garden and summer-house—which must be much the same as our own—all the more remarkable. Signor Beccari, an Italian gentleman, was the first to discover and describe the species, and he has made a drawing of it and its garden, which may be seen in volume ix. of The Gardener’s Chronicle, at p. 333. One can only hope that he did not “obtain,” as they call it, any specimens—for to kill a creature that makes a garden and looks after the flowers in it, taking them away when they wither and bringing fresh ones in their stead, is, to my mind, to do something but little short of murder. Perhaps if it watered them as well it really would be thought wrong to take such a bird’s life: but where are we to draw the line?

Many of these Bower-birds are wonderful mimickers, and can reproduce all sorts of sounds so exactly that people in Australia are often taken in by them. Mr. Morton, of Benjeroop, relates how a neighbour of his had been driving cattle to a certain spot, and on his way back discovered a nest in a prickly needle-bush, or hakea tree. While “threading the needle branches after the nest (to take, that is destroy it, of course), he thought he heard cattle breaking through the scrub, and the barking of dogs in the distance, and at once fancied his cattle had broken away, but could see no signs of anything wrong. He heard other peculiar noises, and glancing at his dog, as much as to say, ‘What does it mean?’ he saw the sagacious animal, with head partly upturned, eyeing a spotted Bower-bird, perched in the next tree.”

The structures which we have been here considering are of so extraordinary a nature, that they more arrest our attention than do those special activities relating to courtship and matrimony, for the due performance of which the birds have erected them. With all other species, however, in which these rites are a special feature, the exact converse is the case; or, rather, whilst a special place is sought out for their indulgence, no structure in connection with them is made. In some few cases, however, we perhaps see the beginnings of this. The male argus pheasant, for instance, displays before the hen in a little open space in the jungle, to which, in the breeding season, he day after day repairs, and though he builds nothing, he is most assiduous in keeping this space clear and clean, so that if a leaf or a twig, or anything else, gets into it, he takes it up and drops it outside. So pronounced, indeed, is this habit, that the Malays have learnt to take advantage of it to the birds’ destruction. They cut off a long shaving from the stem of a bamboo, and tie one end of it to a peg, which they drive into the ground in the centre of the clearing. Finding that an ordinary pull will not remove the untidy-looking thing, the irritated bird at length seizes it with his bill by the free end, and twisting his neck two or three times about it, makes a violent spring backwards, with the result that he cuts his throat, for the thin edges of the bamboo are almost as sharp as a razor.

The display, as it is called, of the argus pheasant is a most interesting thing to see. The secondary quill feathers of the male are immensely developed, and very beautifully and æsthetically ornamented with a row of circular spots, so finely shaded that they stand out in perspective, like a real ball, as though drawn by a clever artist. Under ordinary circumstances these lovely ornaments are hidden, but when the wings are expanded they make, together, a great circular shield, which is thickly studded with them; and this starry firmament the male, when he wishes to make an impression, offers suddenly and with empressement to the gaze of the female. The lower feathers meet together in front of the bird’s head, so that, in order to judge of the effect he is making, he has to thrust it between two of them, and thus peep out at the hen. At the same time he fans his tail and elevates it, so that the two very broad and very long plumes which it contains nod above the soft splendour of the wings. To see several of these magnificent birds—as large almost, at least in their then appearance, as peacocks—contending thus for the favours of the female, must be a most magnificent sight, to be excelled only, perhaps, by the similar rivalry of peacocks themselves in some tiger-haunted jungle of India. Both these birds belong to a family which is famous for displays of this sort. They are striking enough in our own pheasant, which, however, comes originally from the East, and rise to a maximum, at least in Europe, in the blackcock and capercailzie. I have myself seen both these birds exhibiting to the females, in Norway.

The cock-of-the-rock offers another striking example of the importance of courtship amongst birds. The male of this species is, from beak to tail, of a deep orange, or, more beautiful still, of a brilliant blood-red colour. From the beak one may well say, for this, to the very tip, as well as the head itself, is covered with, or rather buried in, a magnificent crescent-shaped crest, which, by obscuring the usual contour of that region, gives a touch of bizarrerie to a tout ensemble sufficiently splendid. As in the case of the argus pheasant, a little open space is selected, the mossy turf of which soon becomes pressed smooth by the tramplings of the birds’ feet. In it the adorned males, to the admiration of their more sombre-coloured lady-loves, dance and spring about, engaging, from time to time, in fierce and valorous conflicts. Whilst not in the ring, as one may say, the birds often fly from one to another of the neighbouring trees, to the trunks of which they sometimes cling, all in the greatest excitement. As in all other cases of the sort, the females are supposed to accept, by preference, those males for their husbands, whose plumage, when thus shown to advantage, creates the most dazzling effect.

This is the theory of sexual selection by which Darwin accounts for most of the very beautiful colours and markings throughout nature. But though his arguments have never been shaken, whilst the evidence on which they are based has been most effectively supplemented,[3] yet naturalists, as a body, seem determined to ignore both the one and the other, and to see in the most striking patterns and conspicuous hues, a “protective resemblance” to the surrounding landscape, which, if it really exist for any man, must be due rather to some personal cause, such as strong imagination or weak eyesight—or a combination of the two—than to any objective reality. There is no animal now, in fact, however conspicuous it may be to the eye of the savage, that is not pronounced almost invisible by some spectacled old gentleman or another, and I feel confident myself that, were a red or blue lion to step off a public-house and walk in full view down the street, it would be thought to “blend wonderfully” with the houses on either side, by these thorough going advocates of the protective theory. Darwin, however, who has pointed out so many cases of assimilative colouring, all of which are accounted for on his theory of natural selection, did not believe that the tiger or zebra were protected in this way, nor would he, probably, have endorsed the red lion.

It is amongst the birds of paradise, however—and especially in the case of the great bird of paradise, the loveliest, perhaps, of all—that we see the courting antics of birds exhibited, if not in their greatest perfection, at least in their most overpowering beauty. Here the gathering-place, instead of being on the ground, is amongst the tree-tops, and a tree of a specially lofty kind is chosen, which, by virtue of its spreading head and scantiness of foliage, is well adapted for the purpose. Here, in the early morning, the birds assemble, and the males, which alone possess those magnificent plumes, or, rather, fountains of feathers, that spring from beneath the wings on either side, display them now to the best advantage, elevating them, spreading and shaking them out, and keeping them all the while in a state of quivering, tremulous vibration. Amidst this soft and spray-like shower, tinted of a soft mauve and a deep golden orange, the emerald feathers of the neck and the pale, straw-coloured ones of the head, as the bird turns it excitedly from side to side, gleam and sparkle, whilst the wings are raised and opened, making, as it were, a basket out of which the plume-jets spring. In the intervals between these exhibitions, the birds fly from branch to branch of the wide-spreading tree-top, their plumes now trailing behind them, and looking as beautiful, almost, in another way, as they did just before when specially exhibited. Not that there is much order in the birds’ performances, or, rather, it is order in disorder. Though rivals, emulous of one another’s actions, yet each of them plays its own independent part. No two, it is probable, out of, perhaps, a score composing the assembly, acts in just the same way at just the same time, and thus the whole space is filled, each moment, with a varied scene of exquisite, ethereal loveliness.

Professor Wallace—who does not, however, as it would appear, speak from personal knowledge—tells us that, “at the time of the bird’s greatest excitement, the wings are raised vertically over the back, the head is bent down and stretched out, and the long plumes are raised up and expanded till they form two magnificent golden fans striped with deep red at the base, and fading off into the pale brown tint of the finely divided and softly waving points. The whole bird is then overshadowed by them, the crouching body, yellow head, and emerald-green throat forming but the foundation and setting to the golden glory which waves above. When seen in this attitude the bird of paradise really deserves its name, and must be ranked as one of the most beautiful and most wonderful of living things.” Nothing is said about the hens here, but in the following description—the only one I know which comes from an eye-witness—they play their part, as will be seen, and as I have no doubt they should do in the other. The birds here seen belonged to another species of the paradiseidæ—the red bird of paradise, I think, which is almost as handsome, but of this I cannot be sure. “The two hens,” says Mr. Chalmers, who was travelling in New Guinea, “were sitting quietly on a branch, and the four cocks, dressed in their very best, their ruffs of green and yellow standing out, giving them a handsome appearance about the head and neck, their flowing plumes so arranged that every feather seemed combed out, and the long wires (some curious shaftless feathers characteristic of this family of birds) stretched well out behind, were dancing in a circle round them. It was an interesting sight. First one and then another would advance a little nearer to a hen, and she, coquette-like, would retire a little, pretending not to care for any advances. A shot was fired, contrary to our expressed wish; there was a strange commotion, and two of the cocks flew away, but the others and the hens remained. Soon the two returned, and again the dance began and continued long. As we had strictly forbidden any more shooting, all fear was gone: and so, after a rest, the males came a little nearer to the dark brown hens. Quarrelling ensued, and in the end, all six birds flew away.”

There is not, it must be confessed, much power of description shown here, but it is from life, and at any rate the birds are not killed—a very redeeming point indeed.