LYRE-BIRD. 
Mr. Edwin Ashby has forwarded me this note : “ On dime 12th, 1915, 
at Woodford in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, I found a Lyre- 
Bird’s nest withm half a mile of the township. It was built in the top 
of a grass tree {Xanihorea) at the head of a httle gorge ; the entrance 
of the nest was so placed that the sitting bird could see everything in 
the gorge, and there was a sheer drop of twenty to thirty feet from the nest 
down the gully. The nest was well made with roots, twigs and grass, and 
was finished aU but the lining. The hen bird was driven off the nest 
on the 8th of August following and, unfortunately, my friends were miwise 
enough to handle the ^g, which caused the bird to desert. I was over 
again in Sydney at the end of September, and found that a completely 
formed chick was in the egg ready to hatch. The egg has been mended 
and is m my collection, the chick and nest in the South Australian 
Museum. I thought the early date of the almost completion of the nest 
worth recording. In Victoria I have hstened to the cock bird when 
on his ‘ seat ’ or ‘ scratch ’ imitatiag all the wild birds of the bush. While 
the home of this bird is usually where there are deep tree-fern gullies, some 
years ago I found the bird numerous near Bembo, New South Wales, 
in the MachenaUy Ranges : there were no tree ferns, the country was what 
we should call ‘ open forest,’ some miderbush but not thick. The gentle- 
man with whom I stayed told me that some time previously near his home 
at Cowra Creek in the same ranges he heard what he supposed was a 
* Prospector ’ knapping, ^.e., knocking off pieces of quartz huntmg for gold : 
on going nearer to see who it was, he was astonished to find it was a 
Lyre-Bird making this sound. Some time before there had been a gold 
rush and hundreds of miners hunting for reef gold, so the bird in question 
had added the sound of knapping to its repertoire.” 
Mr. E. J. Christian’s notes read : “ This beautiful bird {Menura 
victorice) is only found in this State, and only in the more mountamous 
and impenetrable districts of the south-east. Unless steps are quickly 
taken to secure a reserve for this bird in one of its favourite haunts it 
will disappear altogether or become very rare indeed. ‘ Pot-hunters ’ or 
‘ Cockney sportsmen,’ aye, even many others, will destroy it for the sake 
of its peculiar tail. Foxes have wrought great havoc amongst them and 
slaughter a great many every year, but nature is helping them, as I 
will show further on. The nearest place to Melbourne in which I ever 
saw these birds was at Gembrook, high up in the Dandenong Ranges, 
forty-one miles by rail from the metropohs. Birds, however, are to be seen, 
I befieve, near Lilydale and Nealesville, twenty-four and thirty-nine miles 
respectively from the city. The three places mentioned are nearly due east 
405 
