BULLEN-BTOLEN. 337 



As the bird is so useful, the proprietors of gardens would be 

 glad to have a number of families in their domains. This plan, 

 however admirable in theory, is found to be impracticable in 

 fact, the quarrelsome nature of the bird enduring no rival. 

 During the building season, the House Wren sings, fights, and 

 builds with equal energy, and drives away birds of three times 

 his size. The woodpecker is obliged to quit so disturbed a spot, 

 the fussy and active titmice yield to the Wren, and even the 

 blue bird itself, which is also a favoured inmate of the garden, 

 and is furnished with breeding boxes, is obliged to retire from 

 the field, and to allow its tiny antagonist the choice of houses. 



Australia is proverbially a strange land, and it is only in 

 Australia, or perhaps in Madagascar, that we should look for a 

 wren measuring some seventeen inches in height. Such a bird 

 is, however, to be found in Australia, and is known to the natives 

 by the name of Bullen-bullen, and to the Europeans as the 

 Lteb Bibd {Menura swperhd). It is remarkable by the way that 

 the genius of the Australian language causes many words to be 

 doubled, so that the natives speak of a well known Australian 

 marsupial as the devil-devil, and of a domestic servant as Jacky- 

 Jacky. 



New South Wales is the chosen country of the Lyre Bird, 

 which is rather local, and affects certain defined boundaries. Its 

 native name is derived from its peculiar cry, and the popular 

 European name is given to the bird on account of the shape of 

 its tail feathers. The two exterior feathers are curved in such a 

 manner, that when the whole tail is spread they exactly resemble 

 the horns of an ancient lyre, the place of the strings being taken 

 by a number of slender decomposed feathers which rise from the 

 centi-e of the taiL When the bird is quietly at rest, the tail- 

 feathers cross each other at the curves, and present a very elegant 

 appearance, though not in the least resembling a lyre. In general 

 shape the bird bears some resemblance to a small turkey, except 

 that the legs are longer and more slender, and that the feet do 

 not resemble those of a gallinaceous bird. It is rather remark- 

 able that the egg presents as curious a mixture of the insessorial 

 and gallinaceous aspects as the bird itself 



The nest of this bird is not at all unlike that of the wren, 

 being very much of the same shape, and domed after a similar 



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