rels, albatrosses, for example. The last is certainly no Ajax, although he is 

 a faithful attendant upon the mariner. He cares not at all for the radiant 

 circle about the ship's lantern. Either it arouses no longings in his breast 

 for the Goming day, or he knows that the light is a solid, impenetrable body, 

 not to be -..trifled with. Or he is too wary and suspicious to take a chance; or 

 he does not think about the matter at all. As for us - who are so profoundly 

 certain that the whole universe \?as made for our convenience and delectation- 

 what can we actually know about such mysteries £ 



What follows is more important; and it uniformly happens. When the Bosun 

 Bird has had a good rest and has recovered from the insult of the lantern, the 

 sailorman takes him, closed wings between kindly hands, and with a "ho-ye-ho" 

 thro\7S him well into the midair of the morning sunshine; and so, at last, 

 Pheaethon, like his namesake, comes into his own. 



Among the many Australasian avifauna that I was set upon seeing in their 

 native surroundings if possible, was the Lyre Bird - familiar to every one 

 who has read about the curiosities of the "Lonely Continent." It is only the 

 full-grown male that has the wonderful tail — composed of sixteen feathers, the 

 two outer curved to form that remarkable lyre-shaped ornament that distinguish- 

 es it from any other species. The best known and the most highly ornamented 

 species ( Menura super ba ) is a native of New South Wales and southern Queensland. 

 It is about as large as a small turkey, 



The possession of this beautiful and wondrous tail is not, however, the 

 only unusual quality that distinguishes this peculiar bird; he is a fine singer 

 and peerless mimic. Just how he came to be included in the Pseudoscines , or 

 False Song Birds, is difficult to understand, considering that his musical abil- 

 ity has been known and recognized from early Australian days. Another accom- 

 plishment is his well-developed powers of mimicry. This additional attainment 

 was especially insisted upon by an Australian ornithologist, guest of the British 

 Ornithologists' Club, when I was in London last summer. He claimed that the 

 male Kenura is unequalled in this respect; and we know that many other observers 

 have recorded instances of this curious trait. One gentleman had a Lyre-Bird 

 as a pet around his farm in Australia for a great many years. "There iras nothing 

 he could not imitate. The following are a few of his" mimicries ; 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, and so on. All the more frequent noises heard about the 

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

 child crying, cries of a flock of parrots, jackass laughing, and many calls of 

 small birds." 



It was a rare privilege for me to see in company with Dr. LeSouef, Director 

 of the Sydney Zoo, and a number of other distinguished ornithologists, three 

 of these remarkable birds in the national Park, exhibiting the best of their 

 mimetic and other stunts. You can imagine how lucky I. was when Gould relates 

 that he was a year in Australia without seeing one, although he heard many'. 



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