L YRE-BIRD 



525 



as it does by leaps. Another method of stealing upon it is said to 

 be practised by the natives, and is attained by the hunter fixing on 

 his head the erected tail of a cock-bird, which alone is allowed 

 to be seen above the brushwood. The greater part of its time is 

 said to be passed upon the ground, and seldom are more than 

 a pair to be found in company. One of the habits of the cock is 

 to form small i-ound hillocks, which he constantly visits during the 

 day, mounting upon them and displaying his tail by erecting it 

 over his head, drooping his wings, scratching and pecking at the 

 soil, and uttering various cries — some his own natural notes, others 

 an imitation of those of other animals. The wonderful tail, his 

 most characteristic feature, only attains perfection in the bird's 

 third or fourth year, and then not until the month of June, 

 remaining until October, when the feathers are shed to be renewed 

 the following season. The food consists of insects, especially 

 beetles and myriapods, as well as snails. The nest is generally 

 placed near to or on the ground, at the base of a rock or foot of a 

 tree, and is closely woven of fine but strong roots or other fibres, 

 and lined with feathers, around all which is heaped a mass, in 

 shape of an oven, of sticks, grass, moss, and leaves, so as to pro- 

 ject over and shelter the interior structure, while an opening 

 in the side affords entrance and exit. Only one egg is laid, 

 and this of rather large size in proportion to the bird, of a 

 purplish-grey colour, suffused and blotched with dark purplish- 

 brown.^ 



Incubation is believed to begin in July or August, and the 

 young is hatched about a month later. It is at first covered with 

 white down, and appears to remain for some weeks in the nest. 

 How much more is needed to be known for a biography of this 

 peculiar and beautiful creature may be inferred by those who are 

 aware of the diligence with which the habits of the much more 

 easily observed birds of the northern hemisphere have been 

 recorded, and of the many interesting points which they present. 

 It is greatly to be hoped that so remarkable a form as the Lyre- 

 bird, the nearly sole survivor apparently of a very ancient race of 

 beings, will not be allowed to become extinct — its almost certain 

 fate so far as can be judged — without many more observations 

 of its manners being made and fuller details of them placed on 

 record. The zoologists of Australia alone can do this, and the 

 zoologists of other countries expect that they will. 



Several examples of Memira have been brought alive to Europe, 

 but none have long survived in captivity. Indeed a bird of such 



^ A nest and egg of Menura alberti, now in the British Museum, are figured ^ / /'/W^^— ^'t. 

 in Proc. Zool. Soc. 1853, Aves, pi. 53. The egg of M. victorise is represented in / /y 



Journ. fur Orn. 1856, pi. ii. fig. 18, under the name of M. superha, but the real 

 egg of that species does not seem to have been figured at all. 



