326 MENURID.S. 



of feathers plucked from its breast. Sometimes the nest is ornamented with fronds of ferns, 

 generally Polypodium, more especially when built low down on the ground. The position of the 

 nest always allows a free flight for the bird, whether built on trees, banks or otherwise, generally 

 facing down the creek if built there. The birds are not good fiyers, and I have noticed that 

 when they build high up on stumps or trees, there are always sapling growths of varying heights 

 to assist them, as ladders, in their hopping flight to the nest. These high nests (of greater 

 numbers in late years) are attributed to the ravages of Foxes. Nests are of varying sizes, 

 according to position generally, about twenty-four inches across. 



" During the breeding season is the best time to hear the cock bird piping his dulcet music, 

 early morning and late afternoon being his favourite times for song, more especially if it has 

 been raining the night before. You have to be very careful in approaching while the birds are 

 in song. If they stop singing, you must be perfectly still, and only approach when they start 

 again. By this means you will get comparatively close, and will be well rewarded for your 

 patience. I have heard them mimic the glorious carol of the Magpie, the harsh note of the 

 Black Cockatoo, the hiss and crack of the Coach-whip, the pretty warble of the Blue Wren, 

 the whistle of the Rosella and shriek of Pennant's Parrakeet, the lovely notes and song of the 

 Harmonious Thrush, the chop of the axe, and other noises, all and sundry of our beautiful bush. 

 Early morning is also their principal feeding time, and their chief food during the breeding 

 time is a small crustacean (Talitnts sylvaticus), which they scratch up in large numbers, and one 

 sees the scratched ground in great evidence in passing along the sides of the hills and creek 

 banks. On the hill sides also are found the dancing mounds, where the birds do their courting. 

 The birds do not pair, but are polygamous. One of my friends saw this by watching, if two or 

 more birds are flushed together, the hen or hens invariably fly on to a branch near by, while 

 the cock disappears through the undergrowth ; the hens seem to know they are not wanted. 

 I am inclined to the belief that these birds were not so timid at one time as we find them now, 

 and this may be surely traced to the advance of the selectors, &c., into the country in which they 

 are found. In comparatively recent years it was a common occurrence in the Strzelecki Ranges 

 to meet birds crossing one's track in fair numbers during the day, but this ground has been 

 selected, and the birds not shot have been driven back, consequently they are now shy. 



" There are generally one or two birds building in a friend's paddock, which is an ideal 

 place for them, as they are almost unmolested, and while staying there it is very pleasant to be 

 wakened every morning by the lovely notes of these birds. One of my friends, when quite a lad, 

 found a nest with young close to the stable ; the young one had been hurt in some way, and 

 he used to take it out of the nest and pet it, the old bird meanwhile perched on a branch near 

 by, not at all put about, but taking it as a matter of course. The young are very ungainly and 

 leggy for some time after being hatched. I once flushed a bird off a nest and egg from which I 

 had taken an egg the previous season. This is the only instance in which I have found a nest 

 re-built. The birds about this spot invariably build on high stumps. 



" In 1904, at Bayswater, my friends frequently noticed, while hoeing between the raspberry 

 canes, a fine male bird busily engaged in picking up food from the newly dug soil, and not more 

 than a dozen yards away. The large number of these beautiful birds which at one time existed 

 in the Dandenong Ranges, have almost disappeared since the village selectors came on the 

 scene. Nor do they appear in extra numbers in the Government Reserves. I believe they have 

 simply been shot off. One of my friends and myself were examining a nest, off which the Lyre- 

 bird had just flown, when my friend said look at the hen, and there she was not twenty feet 

 from us ; first she would scratch for a little, and then pretend to run, and she repeated the 

 manoeuvre many times, each time gradually coming nearer. All this was evidently to try and 

 lead us away from the nest, like many other species of our feathered friends. The locality was 



