462 NATURAL HISTORY OF BIRDS. 



the family, both very similar in appearance. In contradistinction to the species here 

 figured (M. superba), the M. alberti is of a more rusty color, and has the outer lyre- 

 shaped tail-feathers much shorter and entirely destitute of bars. 



The lyre-birds are very partial to the dense brush, and are said to be very shy and 

 difficult to approach. In some parts of New South Wales they are sometimes suc- 

 cessfully pursued by dogs, which by their barking attract the attention of the birds so 

 that the hunter may easily approach. The birds rarely, if ever, attempt to escape by 

 flight, but easily elude pursuit by running swiftly over the ground in the dense brush. 

 The lyre-bird is credited with a great power of mocking the song of other birds or 

 the voices of other animals, even the barking of the dingo. Mr. Gould also states 

 that they are of solitary habits, and that they form small round hillocks, which are 

 constantly visited during the day, and upon which the male is continually trampling, 

 at the same time erecting and spreading out its tail in the most graceful manner. 

 Mr. A. A. Leycester says that the Albert lyre-bird generally constructs its nest of 

 small sticks, interwoven with moss and fibres of roots ; it is covered in with the en- 

 trance on the side, and placed on the side of some steep rock. The single egg laid is 

 of a very dark color, appearing as if it had been blotched over with ink. 



The ATRICHORXITHID^E, brush- or scrub-birds, constitute a family of pseudoscinine, 

 acromyodian Passeres, with two pairs of intrinsic muscles. They are not more nu- 

 merous than the lyre-birds, comprising only one genus of two species, which also 

 are exclusively Australian in their distribution. 



Their external appearance does not indicate any close relationship with the lyre- 

 birds, for in size and general form and coloration they more closely resemble some of 

 our large wrens, with long graduated tails. Their habits are not unlike those of the 

 lyre-birds, and their power of mocking other sounds is equally strong. From Mr. E. P. 

 Ramsay's account of the habits of the species discovered by him, Atrichornis 

 rufescens, we quote as follows : " Only on one occasion did I meet with more than a 

 single bird in the same place. They are always among the logs and fallen trees, over- 

 grown with weeds, vines, nettles, etc., and are the most tiresome birds to procure 

 imaginable. As to their ventriloquial powers, they must be heard to be believed. It is 

 impossible to say what its own note really is. I have frequently stood on a log 

 waiting for it to show itself from among the tangled mass of vines and weeds at my 

 feet, when all of a sudden it would begin to squeak and imitate first one bird and then 

 another, now throwing its voice over my head, then on one side, and then again 

 apparently from the log on which I was standing. This it will continue to do 

 for hours together; and you may remain all day without catching sight of it." 



The broad-mouths, forming the super-family EURYLAIMOIDE^E, which again 

 only comprises one family, the EUEYLAIMID^E, recall in their external appearance several 

 PicariaB, for instance, rollers and barbets, and in fact were usually kept with that 

 order in the systems until more recently Sclater, Garrod, and Forbes demonstrated 

 their passerine nature. Particularly convincing is the absence of tufts to the oil- 

 gland, combined with presence of cajca, the nature of the pterylosis, and the insertion 

 of the tensor patagii brevis ; the palate and the posterior margin of the breastbone 

 are also typical passerine, but the manubrium is pointed and not bifurcated. The 

 desmopelmous arrangement of the deep plantar tendons, which prevents the hallux 

 from being moved independently of the other toes, is another picarian feature. 

 Johannes Milller denied the existence of intrinsic muscles to the syrinx in the only 

 species examined by him, but this may have originated in a mistake, for in others one 



