VI MENURIDAE 491 
gui,’ inhabit damp, gloomy forests; others often frequent dry 
plains, or stony and bushy hill-sides, as A. megapodius, “ El Turco,” 
and P. albicollis, the “ Tapaculo”; while Seytalopus magellanicus 
prefers thick woods, but also haunts grass-lands in the Falkland 
Islands. thinocrypta lanceolata, the “Gallito,” or Little Cock, 
lives in thickets and hedges, and struts in the open hke a Fowl. 
The food, chiefly obtained upon the ground, consists of insects, 
seeds, and buds. The noisy and generally harsh notes vary con- 
siderably, Hylactes tarnii yelping like a dog, Pteroptochus albicollis 
sometimes uttering a sound like a coo, 7riptorhinus paradoxus a 
reiterated frog-lke croak, Rhinocrypta lanceolata a hollow chirrup 
or a scolding cry. The nest, commonly situated near the ground, 
is said in some eases to be made of sticks; Rhinocrypta forms a 
domed structure of grass in a bush, and lays four eggs; Scytalopus 
magellanicus is recorded as using a mass of moss upon a bank to 
contain its set of two; Hylactes and Pteroptochus are reported to 
nest in burrows. The eggs are white, at least in the first three. 
2. PASSERES DIACROMYODAE. 
C. Suboscines. 
This group contains only the two Families Jenuridae (Lyre- 
birds) and Atrichornithidae (Scrub-birds), each with one genus, 
Menura and Atrichornis respectively. The former possesses three 
pairs of vocal muscles, the latter only two pairs ;' 
over, has a pecuharly long sternum, constricted towards the 
middle, while Atrichornis has but rudimentary clavicles, being 
thus unique among the Passerine forms. 
Fam. I. Menuridae.— Lyre-birds have a stout bill; very long 
and powerful metatarsi, with robust elongated straight claws; and 
somewhat short rounded wings, with eleven primaries and ten 
secondaries. The tail has sixteen rectrices, and in the males of 
two species has the exterior pair of feathers curved like a lyre, 
with very narrow outer and very broad inner webs; the next 
six pairs have very distant barbs and no barbules, except towards 
the base; while the two median plumes have narrow inner and 
no outer webs, and after crossing below, curve boldly outwards. 
The tongue is sagittate, the furcula U-shaped, the after-shaft 
rudimentary; the adults have no down. JZ. superba of New South 
Wales and South Queensland, some thirty-three inches long, is 
Menura, more- 
1 Some Oscines have as many as seven pairs, but Sphenoeacus has only three. 
