L YMPHA TIC VESSELS— L Y RE- BIRD 5 2 3 



walls of these canaliculi and capillaries, exchange their gases hy 

 osmosis. The Lungs, being small, scarcely elastic, and moreover 

 fixed to the thoracic walls, are capable of very limited expansion, 

 and the necessary ventilation is secured by the extremely Mell- 

 developed Air-sacs. 



LlTVrPHATIC VESSELS, see Vahculak Systkm. 



LYEA or LYRIE (Skandin. Lira., Lire or Liri), the Orcadian 

 name for Shearwater. 



LYEE-BIRD, one of the most remarkable feathered inhabitants 

 of Australia, the Menum superba or 31. novse-hollandise of ornitholo- 

 gists. First discovered, January 24, 1798, 

 on the other side of the river Nepean in 

 New South Wales by an exploring party 

 from Paramatta, under the leadership of 

 one Wilson, a single example was brought 



• , .1 .,1 i. £ 1 ii. 1 Menuka. (After Sw.iiiiso!!.) 



into the settlement a tew days alter, and 



though called by its finders a " Pheasant " — from its long tail — the 

 more learned of the colony seem to have regarded it as a Bird-of- 

 Paradise.^ A specimen having reached England in the following 

 year, it was described by Gen. Davies as forming a new genus 

 of birds, in a paper read before the Linnean Society of London, 

 November 4, 1800, and subsequently published in that Society's 

 Transactions (vi. p. 207, pi. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made 

 to fix its systematic place. Other examples were soon after 

 received, but Latham, who considered it a Gallinaceous bird, in 

 1801 knew of only five having arrived. The temporary cessation 

 of hostilities permitted Vieillot in 1802 to become acquainted Avith 

 this form, though not apparently with any published notice of it, 

 and he figured and described it in a supplement to his Oiseaux 

 i)om- as a Bird-of-Paradise (ii. pp. 39-42, pis. 14-16), from drawings 

 by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the then owner of 

 the Leverian Museum. - 



It would be needless here to enter at any length on the various 

 positions which have been assigned to this singular form by different 



^ Collins, Account of New South Wales, ii. pp. 87-92 (London: 1802). 



2 Vieillot called the bird "Le Parkinson" ! and hence Bechstein, who seems 

 to have been equally ignorant of what had been published in England concern- 

 ing it, in 1811 [Kurzc Uehersicht, p. 134), designated it Parkinsonius viirahilis\ ! 

 Sluiw also, prior to 1813, figured it [Nat. Mlscel. xiv. p. 57?) under the name 

 0? Paradisea parkinsoniana. The name ^^ Menura lyra, Shaw," was quoted by 

 Lesson in 1831 {Tr. d'Orn. p. 473), and has been repeated by many copyists of 

 synonpny, liut I cannot find that such a name was ever applied by Shaw. 

 Yieillot's principal figure, Avhich has a common origin with that given by 

 Collins, has been extensively copied, in spite of its inartistic not to say inaccur- 

 ate drawing. It is decidedly inferior to that of Davies, the first describer and 

 delineator. 



