t to the decorations.

Haste, my Nanette, my lovely maid,
Haste to the bower thy swain has made.

No enchanted prince could act the deferential lover with more delicate or
graceful attention. Poor fellow, the pert, intruding sparrows plague him
abominably; and really it becomes almost an affair of police that some
measures should be adopted for their exclusion. He is subject to fits,
too, and suddenly, without the least apparent warning, falls senseless,
like an epileptic patient; but presently recovers, and busies himself
about the bower. When he has induced the female to enter it, he seems
greatly pleased; alters the disposition of a feather or a shell, as if
hoping that the change may meet her approbation; and looks at her as she
sits coyly under the overarching twigs, and then at the little
arrangement which he has made, and then at her again, till one could
almost fancy that one hears him breathe a sigh. He is still in his
transition dress, and has not yet donned his full Venetian suit of black.

In their natural state, the satin bower-birds associate in autumn in
small parties; and Mr. Gould states that they may then often be seen on
the ground near the sides of rivers, particularly where the brush
feathers the descending bank down to the water's edge. The male has a
loud liquid call; and both sexes frequently utter a harsh, gutteral note,
expressive of surprise and displeasure.

Geffrey Chaucer, in his argument to _The Assemblie of Foules_, relates
that, "All foules are gathered before Nature on St. Valentine's day, to
chose their makes. A formell egle beyng beloved of three tercels,
requireth a yeeres respite to make her choise: upon this triall, _Qui
bien aime tard oublie_-'He that loveth well is slow to forget.'" The
female satin-bower bird in the Regent's Park seems to have taken a leaf
out of the 'formell egle's' book: for I cannot discover that her humble
and most obsequious swain has been rewarded for his attentions though
they have been continued through so many weary months; but we shall never
be able entirely to solve these mysteries till we become possessed of the
rare ring sent to the King of Sarra by the King of Arable, 'by the vertue
whereof' his daughter understood 'the language of all foules,' unless we
can

Call up him that left untold
The story of Cambuscan bold,
Of Camball and of Algersife,
And who had Canace to wife,
That own'd the virtuous ring and glass,
And of the