THE LYRE BIRD. $23 
Here is a rich display of birds with gorgeous plumage, and 
here also are found many remarkable only for their unlike- 
ness to all others. Among the latter is a family, the mem- 
bers of which, with their peculiarly large feet, scratch up 
grass, herbage, and soil, and throwing these backward, in 
concentric circles, finally raise a mound which forms a verit- 
able hot-bed. In this they deposit their eggs, and the heat 
engendered by the decaying vegetable matter quickens the 
life-germ, as in ordinary hatching does the warm body of 
the brooding mother. 
What is especially curious is that the Lyre Bird, while in- 
cubating its eggs in the method common to birds, has a sim- 
ilar habit of raising mounds which it devotes to a wholly 
different purpose. These elevations seem to be intended as 
orchestras for the display of musical powers, and both morning 
and evening they betake themselves thither, frequently while 
they whistle, sing, or imitate the notes of other birds, raising 
and spreading their tails with all the pride of the peacock. 
M. Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, refers both the Lyre 
Birds and the “Mound Builders” to one family, that of the 
Megapodide, or the Great Feet. It is by no means won- 
derful that this thought should have suggested itself to the 
mind of the learned naturalist, for there certainly is, in 
several respects, a striking similarity between the Lyre Bird 
and the Megapodes, a resemblance so strong as to be per- 
ceived even by the casual observer. But this similarity 
seems capable of explanation on other grounds than those 
of a family relationship, nor need we even suppose that the 
birds in question belong to the same order. 
The Lyre Bird has been known for more than half a cen- 
tury, but possibly, our fullest information is derived from 
the English naturalist, Gould, who, with his wife, travelled in 
Australia for the purpose of ornithological investigation 
more than twenty years ago, and who since has, from time 
to time by his correspondence, obtained facts of much im- 
portance to ornithological science. To his pen, and to her 
