178 BEAUTSFUL BIRDS 
world, for Australia is the only country in the world 
where they are found. People like much better to 
see that beautiful tail in their rooms, where it will 
soon get spoilt and dusty, or to put some feathers of 
it in their hats, than to know that the bird 1s running 
about with it, alive and happy, holding it down like 
a pheasant’s when he walks through the bushes, but 
raising it in the air when he stands on his little 
hillock, for the hen Lyre-bird to see, and singing her a 
song as well. People who live in Australia—and there 
are a great many people who live there—might often 
see it doing that if they were to take a little trouble 
(they take a great deal of trouble to kill it), and, even 
if they could not see it, they would hear its beautiful 
song. But they like much better to kill it, so that 
there may be a little less song and beauty and happi- 
ness in the world, and all because of the wicked little 
demon with the correct suit of clothes. But all this 
is going to be altered, and you are going to alter it. 
Just run to your mother, wherever she is—if she 1s 
not with you now—and ask her to promise, ever so 
faithfully, never to have anything whatever to do 
with a hat that has so much as one single feather of 
a Lyre-bird in it. 
