MANY of the articles in early newspapers told tales of the magnificence of the play of light on the male’s plumage and the abundance of the winged creatures in the Fassifern and Dugandan scrubs and the rainforests of Tamborine Mountain, especially during the mating season in late Spring and early Summer. The beauty of the male’s iridescent feathers and its habit of throwing its head back and forming an encircling bower with its wings as part of the mating ritual did not flow through to its common name – Rifle Bird. Instead, the name comes from its colouring being vaguely reminiscent of the uniforms of early 19th century British Army riflemen. A naturalist described the male Riflebird in the Moreton Bay Courier in 1850 as “one of the richest in its plumage of the Australian fauna”. But while early articles about the bird were fulsome in compliments about its sheer beauty, those same articles are confronting to read. A perfect example is the naturalist whose article was published in the late December 1850 edition of the Moreton Bay Courier. He describes in detail how the males would rise from the thickets to preen and dance in the higher branches of a closely spaced Hoop Pines as soon as the Summer sun shone on the tree tops. He wrote of the extraordinary calls they made as they made short flights from tree top to tree top. “After 10am, the male Riflebird descends lower down where he still keeps up the cry of ‘yaaas’ every ten minutes. You wait with patience and after a short time you see him with wings encircled and his head thrown upon his back, and whirling round and round, one way then the other. After that he will cautiously show his head. Then is the moment, you take aim, pull the trigger, and the shot hits him in the head, and he falls lifeless at your feet.”