The Australian Lyre Bird. 17 



living moss, which literally grows over it, and so amalgamates 

 it with surrounding objects, that were it not for the suspicious 

 little hole at the top it would be impossible to discover it. 



Before concluding these remarks, I feel bound to bear tes- 

 timony to a pleasing trait in the economy of these birds, which 

 is the remarkable solicitude of the female for her young one. 

 Although at all other seasons she is, par excellence, the bird in 

 which the noli me tangere principle is most strictly developed, 

 yet during the period that her offspring is a helpless nestling, 

 she so far overcomes her natural timidity in anxiety for its 

 safety, that if you touch the young bird, causing it to make 

 a plaintive cry, and the mother is within hearing (which is 

 generally the case), she will come through the bush like a flash 

 of light, and, seeing the formidable appearance of the disturber 

 of her home, will commence rushing about in gradually con- 

 tracting circles, evidently in the greatest distress. In marked 

 contrast to this, however, is the conduct of the male bird, who, 

 after the period of incubation is over, never goes near the 

 nest, or appears to care a pin what becomes of his family. 



As civilization gradually increases, many birds and animals 

 are becoming so scarce or altogether extinct, that in a very few 

 generations after this they will be known only by name, or as 

 matters of history. Witness the kangaroo, the emu, and even 

 the native pheasant, and some others in this very land. It is, 

 therefore, a matter of considerable surprise to me that no 

 systematic efforts are made to rear and domesticate many a 

 bird and animal which is every year becoming scarcer, and 

 which would doubtless thrive under the fostering care of man. 

 I have known this tried in regard to the very bird of which we 

 are now treating ; but the few schoolboy attempts which I have 

 witnessed never can and never will succeed. A friend of 

 mine, who has now studied the habits of the lyre bird in a state 

 of nature for many years, and who in one season obtained 

 in Gipps* Land no fewer than 114 tails with his own gun, 

 has written to me a plan by which he feels confident that 

 he could rear them, and I think his system a likely one, 

 but it would entail great expense and loss of time; and to 

 the poor bushman, whose time is money, and whose sole 

 dependence for subsistence is his gun, the advantages of 

 success in undertakings of this nature are not at all commen- 

 surate with the certain loss in case of failure. " Should this 

 noble bird, however" — thus he concludes his letter to me — 

 " be domesticated, and I feel certain that this day will come, and 

 he should retain in captivity those admirable powers of mimicry 

 which he daily exhibits in the recesses of his native forests, 

 universal consent would, I have no doubt, acknowledge his 

 right to the title of the ' King of Mocking Birds/ " 

 VOL. VII. — no. i. c 



