GENERAL AND INTRODUCTORY. 35 



Queensland and New South Wales, Ptiloris paradiseus. Its size averages that of 

 an ordinary pigeon; the body is a deep velvet black, with purple reflections; the 

 breast and abdomen are of the same colour, with olive green edges to the feathers ; the 

 top of the head and the throat are covered with smaller, scale-like feathers that 

 glitter with that brilliant metallic green sheen that is so characteristic of the breasts 

 of humming birds, and many of the typical Birds of Paradise, the two central feathers 

 of the tail being of the same resplendent hue. The two closely allied New Guinea 

 species, Epimachus magnus and E. albus have been justly described as among the 

 most lovely bird forms that inhabit the face of the earth. The metallic tints of the 

 head and throat in Ptiloris is, in these instances, more extensively distributed, being 

 associated in the former type with a long, resplendent tail, and erectile ruffles 

 developed in the neck and shoulders. In E. albus, which is known in the trade as 

 the Twelve-wired Bird of Paradise, there is also a crested metallic tinted collar. 

 In addition to this, the tail is reduced to twelve wire-like elements which represent 

 the shafts only of the ordinary feathers, while the whole posterior half of the body 

 is enveloped in a mass of long, curled and silky plumes of a pure white hue. 



The list of notable Australian birds would be incomplete without brief mention 

 of the well-known Lyre Bird, Menura superba. The extraordinary lyre-form develop- 

 ment of the tail feathers of this remarkable bird is too well known to need elaborate 

 description. Such, in fact, is the popular demand at the antipodes for this tail- 

 plume for decorative purposes, that the extermination of the bird has been accom- 

 plished in many districts where it was once plentiful, and its ultimate extinction 

 is threatened if measures are not taken to restrain its present wholesale persecution. 

 The contour of the Lyre Bird, with its long neck and stout, gallinaceous feet, is by 

 no means unlike that of a peacock, and the wonderful tail, which is possessed only 

 by the male bird, fulfils a corresponding rdle of vain display. Like the Bower Birds, 

 the Lyre Bird is an architect, but it is content with a raised earthen mound or 

 platform only, upon which it is accustomed to execute innumerable antics, spreading 

 its wings and erecting its tail, for the fascination of a train of female admirers, or for 

 its personal delectation, after the manner of the true peacock tribe. One bird not 

 unfrequently possesses several of these dancing, or " corroboree " mounds, as they 

 are styled by the colonists, situated at some little distance from one another, to 

 which, when disturbed, it successively repairs. As with the Peafowl, it is only 

 the adult male Lyre Bird that develops the characteristic tail, the females and 

 young males being clad in a plain brown plumage, without any special points of attrac- 



