THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
fascinating life forms that once made the locahty so romantic. But this 
is a necessary transition stage between primeval forest and productivity 
for man. Turning from this we may trace the valley down and find a 
patch of virgin forest yet unspoiled, and dipping into it may see the 
Lyre-Bird at home. The scrub is filled with characteristic odour of decom- 
posing gum leaves and aromatic shrubs ; musk trees, hazels, blackwoods 
and many other plants form a thicket of growth beneath the kindly 
shelter of giant eucalj^ts. Wire grass, sword grass and the vegetable 
cables of supplejack occasionally impede progress, for they are tough and 
spiteful. Ferns there are in plenty, and abundant scratchings in the 
ground about them indicate the presence of Lyre-Birds. In parts the 
scrub floor seems to have been energetically raked that very morning. 
The birds love to work on a bank where they can shoot out their scrap- 
ings downhill. Several ‘faces’ of earth are to be observed with fresh 
marks of the birds’ claws upon them. The Lyre-Bird has to work hard 
for its Hving, turning over in a systematic manner vast quantities of earth 
in search of beetle larvae, Crustacea and molluscs upon which it mainly 
feeds. In return for food offered, the great trees have the soil about 
their base continually cultivated by this feathered forester. Away at the 
head of a short side creek, in a horseshoe-hke earth shp, a nest is found. 
The position is an ideal one. The nest, set against the bank, which is 
dressed in small ferns, cannot be approached from the rear, while in front 
the sitting bird has a fine outlook in case of surprise. The nest contains 
one egg in July and August. The finding of eight large feathers of a 
male bird’s tail told its own story. With the introduction of foxes, and 
from the fact that the female lays but one egg a season, the Lyre-Bird 
seems to be doomed. That one egg is sufficient under normal conditions 
is evidenced by the numbers of birds in the Upper Yarra and North 
Gippsland districts. The Lyre-Bird evidently is a king — ^it stands at the 
head of the bird inhabitants and is not preyed upon by anything. So, 
hke other forms of life in that proud position, it has a speciahsed and not 
an indiscriminate reproduction. But with the quick spread of the fox, the 
bird cannot as’ quickly alter its habits to meet the case, in the vicinity of 
Mt. Cobbler, North-east Victoria, where there is much sandstone rock out- 
cropping in the valleys, the Lyre-Bird usually selects a stony shelf or cleft 
in some spot commanding a good outlook, to place its nest. I observed a 
nest once in romantic conditions — resting upon a rocky ledge, embowered with 
ferns and with a small waterfall playing alongside. The habit of nesting 
among rocks, though rare with M. victorioe, is quite common with M. superba, 
chiefly because of the prevalence of rocks in the regions inhabited.” 
404 
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