642 The Sparrow-like Birds 



is sufficient to alarm them." They are solitary in their habits, rarely more 

 than a pair being seen together, and are constantly wandering through the brush. 

 Among the many curious habits is that of forming 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 his tail in the most grace- 

 ful manner. When alarmed they run through the bush with the greatest rapidity, 

 carrying the tail horizontally. The male is a singer of no mean attainments, 

 having a variety of calls and notes of his own, as well as being an expert imitator 

 of the notes of other birds and even the howling of the Dingo. The early morn- 

 ing and evening are the periods when they are most animated and active. The 

 nest, which is artfully concealed, is placed on the ledge of a projecting rock, on 

 the top of a stump, or the base of a tree. It is of large size, formed outwardly 

 of large sticks and lined with the inner bark of trees and fibrous roots, and is 

 more or less completely roofed over. The single egg is large and very dark 

 colored, appearing as though smeared with ink. The young bird, which is 

 clothed with down for a month, remains in the nest for six weeks or more. In 

 the vicinity of Melbourne the place is taken by the very closely allied Victoria 

 Lyre-bird (M. victoria}, or Bullan-Bullan, as it is called by the natives, in indica- 

 tion of its gurgling note. Its habits are very similar to those of the first-mentioned 

 form. 



Prince Albert's Lyre-bird, however, is not only considerably different in 

 plumage lacking the lyriform tail but has somewhat different habits. 

 Thus instead of the mounds each bird forms three or four ll corroborying places" 

 as the wood sawyers call them, consisting of holes scratched in the sandy ground, 

 being about two and a half feet in diameter by sixteen, eighteen, or twenty inches, 

 and three or four hundred yards apart. When approached cautiously the bird 

 may be seen at one or the other of these holes, into which it frequently jumps 

 and seems to be feeding and then ascends and struts round and^round the place, 

 imitating with its powerful musical voice any bird it may chance to hear about 

 it. It is recorded that one which had taken up its quarters within two hundred 

 yards of a sawyer's home soon learned to imitate all the sounds of the household, 

 such as the crowing of the cocks, the cackling of the hens, the barking and 

 howling of the dogs, and the painful screeching of the sharpening or filing of the 

 saw. Its own whistle is said to be exceedingly beautiful and varied. Recently 

 a Mr. M'Ncilly, of Drouin, Australia, has described a Lyre-bird which he has had 

 in a state of domestication about his farm for a period of twenty years. It was 

 a male, and he attained the full perfection of plumage in six or seven years, 

 becoming a great favorite about the place. " There appears to be nothing he 

 could not mimic. The following are a few of his favorite imitations: the 

 noise of a horse and dray moving slowly, with the play of the wheels in the axle 

 boxes, chains rattling, etc.; an occasional 'Gee up, Bess'; the sound of a violin, 

 piano, cornet, cross-cut saw, etc. All the more frequent noises heard about 

 the farm the bird learnt to perfection, such as a pig being killed, dog howling, 

 child crying, flock of Parrots, jackass laughing, and many other imitations 

 of calls of small birds." 



