OF VICTORIA. 173 



any trespass on its haunts. So shy is its disposition that 

 when you have accidentally broken a twig, after treading 

 carefully upon at least 50,000 during the half-hour's 

 approach, away goes the male bird like a flash of lightning. 

 You move on again in the full possession of what is left of 

 your self-control after two or three attempts to see the 

 " Mocking-bird of Australia " on its playground. However, 

 a view of the playground eventually shows you it is a small 

 cleared space of about three feet square in the tangle of 

 twining vegetation. It is made of raised ground, kept 

 fairly well weeded by the constant use the male makes of 

 it while dancing to please its mate, in the winter time 

 especially. It is at this period of the year many of the 

 animals in its neighbourhood are mocked in turn. In the 

 1884 volume of the Victorian Naturalist Mr. A. J. Camp- 

 bell writes very nicely of this bird, when he characterizes 

 its vocal powers in the following way : — " The powerful, 

 sonorous ring of the Lyre-bird's natural song is not sur- 

 passed by any of its Australian compeers ; as to its mocking 

 capabilities, it certainly leaves all the world's mocking- 

 birds far behind.* Its ear is so accurate that it can imitate 

 to the very semitone the vocality of any of its forest 

 friends, whether the solemn ' mo-poke ' of the Owl, the 

 coarse laugh-like notes of the Great Brown Kingfisher, or 

 tlie higher pitched and more subdued notes of smaller birds. 

 But the most extraordinary performance is the imitating, 

 not a single bird, but a flock ; therefore it has to produce 

 duplex or double-sounding notes. I have heard it imitate 

 simultaneous sounds exactly like the voices of a flock of 

 Pennant Parrakeets rising from the scrub. It is equally at 

 home with other familiar sounds : the grunting of the Koala 



* Dr. Shufeldt champions the cause of the Mockiug-bird {Mimns polyglottvn) of 

 North America. 



