22 PROCEEDINGS OF THE 



instant I was quite taken aback at the idea of a fish shooting 

 through the air and out of a forest. Directly after I saw it was a 

 male Lyre-bird, its tail closed and its wings spread, but without a 

 movement in either. I watched it, after dashing past directly in 

 front of my face, soar down the hill-side, which here was free of 

 tall scrub, and finally disappear in the bushes at the bottom of the 

 valley. The two big feathers in the tail, the lyre feathers, which 

 curl round at the ends, were what gave it the resemblance to the 

 tail of a fish. 



The next morning I returned to Fernshaw, where I had previously 

 spent two or three days. The coach left Marisville at the early 

 hour of four; the air was fresh, almost cold, and the road lay 

 through forest, which, as we approached our destination, became 

 more dense. It was then, about six o'clock, that we noticed three 

 or four Lyre-birds cross the road immediately in front of us, and 

 disappear in the valley on our right. Fernshaw, which is situated 

 about forty miles north of Melbourne, is closely surrounded by 

 mountains. In the deep, well-watered gullies the vegetation is 

 very dense. Tree-ferns grow in large numbers, and to a great 

 height, sometimes reaching forty feet, while other trees, the sassafras, 

 the myrtle, and here and there a giant gum-tree, add variety to the 

 forest. The rough-surfaced wire-grass twines round the clumps of 

 the young trees, matting itself round their stems, till they become 

 invisible ; sword-grass hangs temptingly on the hillside, as though 

 inviting you to take hold and help yourself up, but woe to your 

 hands, if you do so, for its edges are sharp as knives. Under foot 

 lies decaying vegetable matter, and every now and then you come 

 on the slowly-rotting trunk of a fallen gum-tree, often of great size. 

 As you leave the valleys and ascend the hills the bush becomes less 

 dense, being chiefly composed of gum-trees, whose height surpasses 

 those of California, reaching often 400, and, in one case I know of, 

 500 feet. These forests are the home of the Lyre-birds, which, 

 during the middle of the day, seem to take up their quarters in the 

 dark, wooded gullies, while it is in the evening and early morning 

 that they are to be found in any numbers on the mountain sides. 

 They appear to have a liking for the paths and roads, where they 

 like, it seems, to scratch for worms. I once came on one busy in 

 this way at the foot of a tree, and another time I saw two scratching 

 alongside a log. The two specimens I obtained I shot on a path 

 leading up the Black Spur, a hill at the north end of Fernshaw, and 



