52 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
October, 1927 
lantana scrub, affording splendid cover for the coach 
whip birds, their resounding notes ringing all day long. 
The rufous and harmonious shrike thrushes — golden and 
rufous whistlers, yellow and scarlet robins, and a whole 
host of other species were wintering among the river 
valleys. The medley of sound often set me wondering 
whether each bird was not trying to mimic its neighbour 
as well as sing its own song. 
One day while sitting at lunch on board the boat we 
listened to whip-bird, thrush, and rufous whistler — each 
bird in rotation, with hardly a stop between the different 
the different songs. The whistler seemed trying, in a 
thin, quavering voice, to imitate the whip-bird’s song. 
The thrush tried too, certainly making a better and 
firmer job of it. Then, as if in derision at their efforts, 
so feeble and unconvincing, the whip bird’s rich notes 
rang out, showing thrush and whistler how their songs 
should be sung — ending up with his own. We were 
fascinated as we listened ; and laughed at the obvious 
mimicry. I took the dinghy and rowed over to the birds. 
A thrush and whistler flew as I reached the shore, but 
their songs still rang out as I landed and crept into a 
small cleared space adjacent to* a clump of lantana ; and 
saw a coach whip-bird half-a-dozen yards away. The 
bird was dancing up and down a log — so “beside” him- 
self with mischief that he took no notice of me. T watched 
him as he mimicked the song of thrush and whistler, and 
then mimicked their mimicry of his own song, always 
using thin, quavering notes for the whistlers’ imitation, 
ending with a most absurd doddery whip crack. Then 
giving the thing in his own rich, swelling notes as they 
should be. The whistler’s long pe, pe, pe, pe, pe, pe (ad 
infin iturn — usually given before a storm) the whip-bird 
gave to perfection. T clapped vigorously (T couldn’t help 
it), and the little genius, with a scared look round, darted 
away into the lantana clump. The performance lasted 
half-an-hour, and was well worth the scolding T got for 
holding the boat up. Since than I have heard the lyre bird 
in the MacPherson Range, as it mimicked kookaburras 
currawongs, rifle birds, fruit pigeons, and a host of other 
birds, and T thought perhaps it was not so much amusing 
itself as giving a star performance to all the birds in the 
mountain gully. And T imagined the birds perched 
sedately in the trees round “listening in” criticallv, while 
they appraised the lyre bird’s reproduction of their songs 
