526 LYRE-BIRD 
active habits, and doubtless requiring facilities for taking violent 
exercise, could not possibly be kept long in confinement until the 
method of menageries is vastly improved, as doubtless will be the 
case some day, and, we may hope, before the disappearance from 
the face of the earth of forms of vertebrate life most instructive to 
the zoologist. 
Three species of Menura have been indicated—the old Jf. 
superba, the Lyre-bird proper, now known for nearly a century, 
which inhabits New South Wales, the southern part of Queensland, 
and perhaps some parts of the colony of Victoria; I. victoriz, 
separated from the former by Gould (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1862, p. 23), 
and said to take its place near Melbourne; and JZ. alberti, first 
described by C. L. Bonaparte (Consp. Avium, i. p. 215) on Gould’s 
authority ; and, though discovered on the Richmond river in New 
South Wales, having apparently a more northern range than the 
other two. All those have the apparent bulk of a hen Pheasant, 
but are really much smaller, and their general plumage is of a 
sooty brown, relieved by rufous on the chin, throat, some of the 
ane and the tail-coverts. The wings, containing twenty- 
one remiges, are rather short and rounded ; 
the legs! and feet very strong, with long, 
nearly straight claws. In the immature 
and female the tail is somewhat long, though 
affording no very remarkable character, 
except the possession of sixteen rectrices ; 
but in the fully-plumaged male of JZ. superba 
and WM. victoriz it is developed in the extra- 
ordinary fashion that gives the bird its 
common English name. The two exterior 
feathers (Fig. 1, a, 6) have the outer web 
very narrow, the inner very broad, and they 
curve at first outwards, then somewhat in- 
wards, and near the tip outwards again, 
bending round forwards so as to present 
a lyre-like form. But this is not all; their 
broad inner web, which is of a lively chest- 
nut colour, is apparently notched at regular 
Fig. 1. intervals by spaces that, according to the 
Portion or Ovrer Tarz- angle at which they are viewed, seem either 
Mesa asan ee black or transparent ; and this effect is, on 
(a. in ordinary position. 3 : 
b. seen edgeways.) examination, found to be due to the barbs 
MENURA SUPERBA. at those spaces being destitute of barbules. 
The middle pair of feathers (Fig. 2, a, 0) is nearly as abnormal. 
These have no outer web, and the inner web very narrow ; near 
1 The metatarsals are very remarkable in form, as already noticed by Eyton 
(Joc, cit.), and their tendons strongly ossified, 
