552 



NATURAL HISTORY. 



Passeees. 



As ' Picarian birds ' was defined as woodpecker-like birds, so the above 

 heading may be translated by the words sparrow-like birds. Of these the 

 numbers are legion. The latest catalogue of the birds of the world enu- 

 merated over twelve thousand species, and of these a half belonged to the 

 present group. Our space will admit but an insignificant fraction of these, 

 and hence only those most interesting will be mentioned at all. A large 

 volume would be necessary ; a few pages is all that we can afford. There 

 is, however, one point to be noted : in many of the groups there are many 

 species alike in structure and in habits, the only distinctions between them 

 being of that character which only interests the ornithologist, and hence 



a description of one 



^ife\)iriLa^^ °^ ^ ie S rou P i s a l" 



most equivalent in 



a popular work to 

 a description of all. 

 The first of these 

 birds is the lyre- 

 bird of Australia, 

 a form which pos- 

 sesses no especial 

 beauty, or interest, 

 except that furnished 

 by its unrivalled tail. 

 Taking this into con- 

 sideration, the bird 

 well deserves its spe- 

 cific name, ' sitperba.' 

 Of its habits com- 

 paratively little is 

 known. It lives in 

 the dense brush, and 

 is very shy and wary 

 in its habits. It is 

 said to be an excel- 

 lent mimic, repeating the notes of many other animals in the same way 

 that does our mocking-bird. The body is scarcely larger than that of a 

 bantam fowl, and the male alone, as in so many other cases, possesses the 

 wonderful lyre-shaped ornament. 



Of the birds which in their structure resemble our tyrant-birds the 



Fig. 454. — Australian lyre-bird (Menura srijnrhn), male and female. 



