Vol. XXI. 



] ROBERTS, Prince Hdzvard's Lyre -Bird. 



243 



them; 1 tried to \isualise the living bird, magnificent with the 

 beauty of their main curved feathers. And here it is fitting to 

 quote Mathews, who in placing alherli in a separate genus, says 

 (.lusfral Avian Record, vol i., page 109, 1912) : "Differs from 

 Menura in the form of the tail lacking the long curved out rec- 

 trix." There is no inkling in Leach, or Hall's Key, which are 

 alike a standard and inspiration for many of us, and rarely fail 

 us. Skins amply justify his distinction, but whether a generic 

 division is justifiable is a question which must be left to others. 

 ]\Iy reason for stressing the i)oint and introducing the farm-house 

 and the drawing (kindly dcMie by Air. Douglas Eden of this town 



from a Tambourine Mt. specimen) is this: it enables without 

 fiu'ther slaughter immediate identification of the farm-house 

 s|)ecimen, and is therefore of intense value in establishing the 

 range of novcc-hoUandicc as oi)posed to alherti, a much mis- 

 handled question at present. 



Here then was no alberti. What was it? jMy acquaintance 

 with the actual bird did not take place immediately on account 

 of its extremely restricted range in even this extremely restricted 

 district, the whole of which is roughly only 35 miles north to 

 south, by 15 miles east to west. Tn 1919 curiosity overcame my 

 love of the bird, and I took two eggs, one of which has since 

 been described by Mr. H. L. White as the type of Menura novcu- 

 hollandicc cdzvardi (Emu. July, 1921). In 1921, just before the 

 nesting .season, T obtained two males and a female. One of the 



