i8 O'DoNOGiiUE, Notes o)t Viciorian Lyre-bird. [y^' 



Vict.Nai. 

 XXXI. 



low tree whose branches tliey have gained by a series ol devious, 

 hurried, and ungainly jumjjs. They then glide gracefully over 

 the tops of the vegetation to some secluded retreat in the 

 \alley beneath. 



The female nests preferably in a hollow stumj), although 

 many nests may be noted practically on the ground amid a 

 chmij) of vegetation, or in a cavity in the face of a chff. In 

 some gullies and ranges frequented by the birds, decayed gums 

 are the exception rather than the rule. The demand, con- 

 sequently, is greater than the sui)ply, and many hen birds 

 have of necessity to begin housekeeping on Nature's basement 

 instead of an airy attic. The assumption that the bird has 

 acquired the habit of nesting in stumps since the acclimatization 

 of the lo.x is undoubtedly an erroneous one. The hen bird 

 would ha\e to sustain many lo>sses in eggs and chicks before 

 it would become obvious to her that high nesting was the only 

 exi:)edient by which she could rear her young. This deviation 

 from a long-continued habit of ground-nesting would probably 

 influence her olfsjiring to a greater or less extent. In any 

 case, however, it would require the lapse of a greater period 

 of time to bring about the more or less common condition of 

 nest-selection now prevailing than the fox has been at large 

 in Victoria. 



The birds }ii(|iiiiilin,i4 the Njcality under consideration had 

 certainly no cause to fear the fox, since it was neither seen nor 

 heard nearer than 150 miles of their habitat. One bushman, 

 with whom I held brief converse on the subject of the Lyre- 

 bird nesting in hollow stumps, contended — and the contention 

 lias a greater merit of probability than the fox theory — that 

 the habit was acquired to escape the pressing attentions of 

 the carnivorous brush-tailed bush rat, an animal well known 

 from its depredations on the housewife's poultry. A sly 

 (piery, however. relati\r to the arboreal qualifications of this 

 nocti\agant induced the Inishman to discreetly c\-idence a 

 keen interest in the ])r()bal)lc source whence the rich " runs " 

 of alknial gokl formerly obtained in the creeks and gullies of 

 the ("rooked Ri\er district originated. Wishing to dis]iose of 

 the subject as exjHditiously as i)ossil)le and revert to the 

 Lyre-bird and its habits before we reached the parting of the 

 ways, I made a significant motion of the hand u[)wards to 

 indicate the thousands of feet of vSilurian rock \vhich. arguing 

 from existing e\idence, the auriferous quartz-veins had 

 permeated, and which had been removed liy a long and con- 

 tinuous ])rocess of disintegration and transj)ort. The bushman 

 regarded me with unwinking scrutiny for a few moments and 

 then spmred away, with the brief parting ex]>ression, " Be 

 good." I ha\e since concluded that he nuist haw interpreted 



