THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 105 



NOTES ABOUT LYRE-BIRDS. 



By a. J. Campbell. 



(Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 8th Sept., 1884) 



" In 1811, Mr. Hawdon, with a party of twelve able-bodied men 

 including black native police, was instructed by the Government to 

 open up a practicable route for cattle from Western Port to Gipps- 

 land. It was while performing this journey that he had an oppor- 

 tunity of closely examining the shy and curious Lyre-bird." This 

 is an extract from " The Colonies of Australia," by Samuel Sidney, 

 1858, and is the oldest published data we possess respecting Queen 

 Victoria's Lyre-bird {Menura Victorice), named by Gould in honor 

 of our Most Gracious Sovereign. This species is frequently and 

 erroneously confounded with Menura superba^ the New South Wales 

 variety. 



The oldest information possessed by me dates back to 1847, when 

 & lelative of mine commissioned a blackfellow named McNabb, (a 

 somewhat aristocratic Caledonian name for an aboriginal of the 

 Yarra Yarra tribe), to obtain some tail feathers. He was absent a 

 few days and returned witli five tails, whicli he procured on the river 

 side of the Dandenong Ranges, and for which he received one shilling 

 each. 



Mnch has been said and written about Lyre-birds, yet still com- 

 ])aratively little is known concerning their natural economy. This is 

 jirincipally due to its shy disposition, and the almost inaccessibility 

 of tlie tracts of country frequented by them. Its position in the 

 great list of birds is very unique, and not only are the eyes of all 

 Australian but of all the ornithologists of the civilized world directed 

 towards the wonderful Menura. 



I shall content myself in this paper by simply narrating a few 

 facts hitherto unpublished or imperfectly known, which have been 

 gathere 1 from personal observation or furnished by friends who have 

 been favorably situaled. Of course, my remarks refer to the 

 Victorian variety, and are principally connected with its nidification. 



Also by data hereinafter mentioned, I shall endeavour to move 

 the Club to memoralise the Honorable the Commissioner of Trade 

 and Customs— the administrator of the "Game Act," to take the 

 necessary steps to extend the close season for Lyre-birds, say from 

 the first day of July, in lieu of the first August. 



Their limits of locality extend from the Australian Alps and 

 adjacent spurs southward througli favourable tracts of country to the 



