in qxiest of Prince Albert's Lyre-bird. 175 



Durrigaii, from which place shortly afterwards I left for Sydney. 

 1 made the blacks a present of all the stores, which amounted to 

 a considerable quantity of flour, tea, sugar, tobacco, pumpkins, 

 and old clothes, and ordered a new gown to be made for Polly 

 (Davy's gin). This she wore on the day of my leaving, making 

 in some measure a better appearance than in her native polish 

 of snakes'-fat and charcoal. 



The following is a short sunmiary of the result of my investi- 

 gations into the habits of Menura alberti. 



This bird has been hitherto found only on the Richmond and 

 Tweed Rivers, in the dense brushes which clothe the mountains 

 in those districts. It is most remarkable that, although similar 

 mountains and brushes exist on the rivers both to the north and 

 to the south of the Richmond and Tweed, this Menura is not to 

 be found in them. The range of the species appears to be 

 limited to a patch of country not wider than eighty by sixty 

 miles ; for though I have not been able to pi'ove this fact myself, 

 for want of time, yet I fancy the information which I have ob- 

 tained is pretty correct, coming, as it does, from sawyers and 

 blacks who are frequently travelling from one river to another. 



The habits of Menura alberti are very similar to those of M. 

 superba, as described by Mr. Gould. Having seen and watched 

 both of these birds on their playgrounds, I find the M. alberti 

 far superior in its powers of mocking and imitating the cries 

 and songs of others of the feathered race to the M. superba ; and 

 its own peculiar cry or song is diflFerent, being of a much louder 

 and fuller tone. I once listened to one of these birds that had 

 taken up its quarters within 200 yards of a sawyer's hut, and 

 had made himself perfect with all the noises of the sawyer's 

 homestead. He imitated the crowing of the cocks, the cackling 

 of the hens, and the barking and howling of the dogs, and even 

 the painful screeching of sharpening or filing the saw. I shot 

 him in the act of crowing, I have heard some persons say that 

 the Menura is polygamous, but I never saw more than a pair 

 together. The cock bird commences to sing at the first dawn 

 of day. Each of them appears to have its walk or boundary, 

 never infringing on another's ground. I have heard them day 

 after day in the same spots, seldom nearer than a quarter of a 



