14 SOME BIRDS OF THE BLUE MOUNTAINS 



of jealousy being hard to discover. It does not seem to be 

 for possession of the hen, but rather arises, I think, from a 

 natural quarrelsomeness of disposition. 



The food is, I think, entirely animal, and consists of all 

 kinds of insects, grubs, and slugs. I have seen them 

 probing decayed wood and bark in search of large grubs, 

 three or four inches long and as thick as the little finger, 

 which they eagerly devoured. If insects fly near them 

 they will leap up in the endeavour to capture them, in 

 which they often succeed ; and they search the crevices of 

 rocks and tree trunks for the minute creatures that lurk in 

 such hiding-places. Ants, also, often afford them a good 

 meal ; and they scratch the ground like domestic fowls in 

 their search for some undiscoverable dainty of microscopic 

 size. 



The tail of the cock, seldom less than twenty inches 

 long, is usually carried trailing on the ground behind him, 

 for, like the peacock, he only occasionally displays this 

 handsome appendage. At the breeding season he makes 

 frequent displays of it for the edification of his hen ; at 

 other seasons it is rarely elevated. The hen, whatever her 

 real sentiments are, does not reveal that she is much 

 charmed by this show, but will be industriously scratching 

 and searching the earth while her mate is strutting round 

 her continually uttering an indescribable sound unlike that 

 of any other bird, and so harsh that a person hearing it for 

 the first time would be surprised to learn that it issued 

 from the throat of a bird that has been justly described as 

 " a sweet songster." 



Song-birds, properly so described, are usually small in 

 size : the lyre-bird is one of the largest — perhaps absolutely 

 the largest. It is seldom that a bird as large in the body 

 as a bantam-cock is heard piping sweetly, yet the song of 

 the lyre-bird is as pleasing to the Australian as is that of 

 the nightingale to the Briton, and, as all who hear it 

 readily admit, reasonably so. Not only is the lyre-bird the 

 most charming-voiced of Austral birds, it is also the 

 mocking-bird of New South Wales. As is well known, it 

 imitates the notes and songs of other birds, but I have not 



