ITS HABITS. 



351 



central tail feathers are narrowly webbed, and all the others are mod- 

 ified with long slender shafts, bearded by alternate feathery filaments, 

 and well representing the strings of the lyre. 



The tail is seen in its greatest beauty between the months of June 

 and September, after which time it is shed, to make its first reappeai^ 

 ance in the ensu- 

 ing February or 

 March. The hab- 

 its of this bird 

 are very curious, 

 and are so well 

 and graphically 

 described by Mr. 

 Gould that an 

 account of them 

 must be given in 

 his own words : 



" The great 

 stronghold of the 

 Lyre-bird is the 

 colony of New 

 South Wales, 

 and, from what 

 I could learn, its 

 range does not 

 extend so far to 

 the eastward as 

 Moretou Bay, 

 neither have I 

 been able to 

 trace it to the 

 westward of Port 

 Phillip, on the 



southern coast ; but further research only can determine these points. 

 It inhabits equally the bushes on the coast and those that clothe the 

 sides of the mountains in the interior. On the coast it is especially 

 abundant at the Western Port and Illawarra ; in the interior the cedar 

 brushes of the Liverpool range, and, according to Mr. G. Bennett, the 

 mountains of the Tiimat country, are among the places of which it is 

 the denizen. 



" Of all the birds I have ever met with, the Menura is far the most 

 shy and difiicult to procure. AVhile among the mountains I have been 

 surrounded by these birds, pouring forth their loud and liquid calls for 

 days together, without being able to get a sight of them, and it was 



The Lyre-bird {Menura superba). 



