872 NOTES ON THE VICTORIA LYRE BIRD. 



Loch, and Omeo districts. Personally, I think it would be im- 

 practicable to keep a bird in captivity even after rearing it unless it 

 had access to some scrub affording shelter and a supply of insects. 



GENERAL NOTES. 



Though lyre birds are chiefly found in the dense scrubby forest, 

 they at times can be seen in fairly open country, but in such cases 

 there is dense scrub at hand, and they disappear into this on the 

 first approach of danger. In South Gipi^sland, where I have seen 

 and heard hundreds of these birds, I never once saw them singing 

 in cleared land, or even in oj^en forest. Moreover, in no instance 

 have I seen them feeding or running about on open ground. On 

 one occasion I noticed about eight of them cross a narrow strip 

 of cleared ground, about 5 chains wide, from one patch of scrub 

 to another. They did this just before dusk by running quickly, 

 jumping over logs, and floating, one after the other. During the 

 great bush fires in South Gippsland in 1898 hundreds of lyre birds 

 were burnt or starved, and I have been told by settlers that in the 

 Jeetho district some of these l)irds came out of the burnt scrub and 

 fed among the fowls near the farmhouses. This was doubtless owing 

 to the destruction of insect life. It would indicate that they could 

 in necessity become graminivorous birds. Mr. J. W. Bainbridge 

 informs me that two lyre birds have become so tame near Mrs. 

 Manfield's Temperance Hotel, at the foot of Mount Buffalo, that 

 Mr. Manfield has photographed one of the pair perched on the fence 

 near the place. 



Lyre birds may be seen at altitudes from 100 feet above sea level 

 in the dense gullies of South Gippsland to those of close on G,000 

 feet, or as high as arboreal vegetation ascends, in the Australian 

 Alps. In November, 1890, when returning to Harriet ville from 

 Mount Feathertop (6,303 feet), in the x\ustralian Alps, I saw be- 

 tween twenty and thirty male and female lyre birds on the stunted 

 snow gums (E. pauncifora) on the high ridge running from Feather- 

 top and separating the Ovens River from Snowy Creek. They were 

 at an altitude of about 5,700 feet and near the timber line. It was 

 nearly sunset when I was surprised to hear a medley of melodious 

 sounds, as if all the birds of the bush w^ere singing their best and 

 loudest. Being alone and on foot, I was in their midst before they 

 noticed me, but to my surprise they not only remained jumping about 

 the trees, or with heads inclined watched me from the branches, but 

 many of them continued their unsurpassable mimicry of other forest 

 birds. I regretted that approaching darkness did not allow me to 

 stay and watch them longer. At altitudes of from 5,000 feet to the 

 timber line I have seen these birds, or evidence of them, on the high 



