FOUR YEARS TO GET A TAIL. 147 
with a roof to it, so that he can get right inside it 
and be quite hidden from sight, tail and all, although 
he is so large—almost as large as a pheasant, even 
without counting his tail. Asa rule it is only little 
birds that make nests like that, and not big ones. 
The Lyre-bird’s nest is something like the one that 
our little wren makes—which perhaps you have seen 
—only of course ever so much bigger. Only one 
egg is laid in it, and out of it comes one of the 
queerest little birds you can imagine, all covered with 
white, fluffy down, and with no tail at all that you 
can see, so that you would never think he was going 
to grow into a Lyre-bird. It takes him four years to 
get that wonderful tail. Apollo did not mean him 
to have it, until he was quite grown up—it was not a 
thing to be entrusted to children. 
Now you must not think that the Lyre-bird 
always holds his tail up in the air, for when he walks 
through the thick bushes he has to carry it as a 
pheasant does, and I think you know how that is. As 
soon as he wants to show it to his wife or his sweet- 
heart, up it goes, and oh, it doves look so beautiful ! 
But now, if it were not for that promise which 
your mother is going to make you, there would very 
soon be no more of these wonderful birds, with their 
wonderful and beautiful tails, left in Australia, which 
would mean that there would be none in the whole 
M 
