NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY OF GLASGOW. 23 



they were both shot about five in the morning. The specimen I now 

 have with me, a young cock, was shot as he was fluttering, trying 

 to balance himself on one of the branches of a small tree into which 

 he had hopped on catching sight of me.* Being a young bird, its 

 tail is not perfect; only two of the feathers are skeletons. 



They are very shy birds and exceedingly quick, so it is no easy 

 matter to shoot them in the bush, where there is so much cover and 

 the ground difficult to get over, especially without making a noise. 

 As the bird can only soar down-hill, it is the custom when stalking 

 them, if it may be so termed, to start at the bottom and work up- 

 wards. One afternoon I set out with young Jefferson, the hotel- 

 keeper's son, a boy of twelve, for a very pretty waterfall, about two 

 miles distant, romantically situated in a wild, wooded valley, to 

 which there was no path, and as there was some chance of coming 

 on a Lyre-bird, I took my gun with me. We first passed through 

 bush, thinned by what must have been a large fire, judging from 

 the number of trees with blackened stems. All bushes and young 

 trees had been cleared away, and the large gums and tree-ferns 

 were the only ones that remained. These last, though little affected 

 by fire, wither and die when they are deprived of shelter and exposed 

 to the sim, so only a few of these, now miserable-looking specimens, 

 remained. Passing on we turned to the right, and were following 

 the spur of a hill, when suddenly to our joy we heard a Lyre-bird 

 in the gully below. Listening, to make sure that the bird was not 

 travelling, for in that case it would have been useless to follow, and 

 finding that the sound continued to come from the same spot, and 

 that the bird had now commenced to mock,f we felt sure that he 

 must be dancing, and so began to descend. Having reached the 

 bottom of the gully, we advanced slowly and cautiously in the 

 direction from which the sound came. We crawled in among fern- 

 trees and over logs, moving on while the bird mocked, and remaining 

 perfectly still when it ceased. It was an exciting time, a time of 

 hopes and fears, for, judging from the note, this was a full-grown 

 bird. We had come to within a few yards of it, when I thought 

 that as my companion knew more about stalking these birds than I 

 did, I had better give him my gun ; so while I remained concealed 



* They only use their wings when sailing down -hill, in which case they 

 generally hop into a tree before starting. 



+ One sound that it repeated often very much resembled that made by a 

 pair of castinets. 



