LYMPHATIC VESSELS—LVRE-BIRD 523 
walls of these canaliculi and capillaries, exchange their gases by 
osmosis. The Lungs, being small, scarcely elastic, and moreover 
fixed to the thoracic walls, are capable of very limited expansion, 
and the necessary ventilation is secured by the extremely well- 
developed Air-sacs. 
LYMPHATIC VESSELS, see VAscULAR SYSTEM. 
LYRA or LYRIE (Skandin. Lira, Lire or Liri), the Oreadian 
name for SHEARWATER. 
LYRE-BIRD, one of the most remarkable feathered inhabitants 
of Australia, the Menura superba or M. novx-hollandix of ornitholo- 
gists. First discovered, January 24, 1798, <=... 
on the other side of the river Nepean in 
New South Wales by an exploring party 
from Paramatta, under the leadership of 
one Wilson, a single example was brought 
into the settlement a few days after, and 
though called by its finders a “ Pheasant ’—from its long tail—the 
more learned of the colony seem to have regarded it as a Bird-of- 
Paradise.1 A specimen having reached England in the following 
year, it was described by Gen. Davies as forming a new genus 
of birds, in a paper read before the Linnean Society of London, 
November 4, 1800, and subsequently published in that Society’s 
Transactions (vi. p. 207, pl. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made 
to fix its systematic place. Other examples were soon after 
received, but Latham, who considered it a Gallinaceous bird, in 
1801 knew of only five having arrived. The temporary cessation 
of hostilities permitted Vieillot in 1802 to become acquainted with 
this form, though not apparently with any published notice of it, 
and he figured and described it in a supplement to his Oiseaux 
Dorés as a Bird-of-Paradise (ii. pp. 39-42, pls. 14-16), from drawings 
by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the then owner of 
the Leverian Museum.? 
It would be needless here to enter at any length on the various 
positions which have been assigned to this singular form by different 
' Collins, Accownt of New South Wales, ii. pp. 87-92 (London: 1802). 
2 Vieillot called the bird ‘‘ Le Parkinson”! and hence Bechstein, who seems 
to have been equally ignorant of what had been published in England concern- 
ing it, in 1811 (Kurze Uebersicht, p. 134), designated it Parkinsonius mirabilis! ! 
Shaw also, prior to 1813, figured it (Nat. Miscel. xiv. p. 577) under the name 
of Paradisca.parkinsoniana, The name ‘‘ Menwra lyra, Shaw,” was quoted by 
Lesson in 1831 (7'r. d’Orn. p. 478), and has been repeated by many copyists of 
synonymy, but I cannot find that such a name was ever applied by Shaw. 
Vieillot’s principal figure, which has a common origin with that given by 
Collins, has been extensively copied, in spite of its inartistic not to say inaccur- 
ate drawing. It is decidedly inferior to that of Davies, the first describer and 
delineator, 
Menvra. (After Swainson.) 
