An Australian 
Wonder. 
(65) THE BIRD WORLD. 
An Australian Worvder. 
THE LYRE BIRD. 
By A. J- CAMPBELL. 
(Continued from page 54.) 
The Mating Time . 
Lyre Birds mate in May or June. The 
males sing more lustily at that time than 
at any other, and don their best frills for 
courting, their sombre plumage appear¬ 
ing very sleek, while their tail feathers 
are at their finest. Nest-building com¬ 
mences soon after mating, the curiously- 
constructed home being ready for the 
single egg at mid-winter—a singular 
time, when all the other birds of the 
forest lay in spring or summer. The 
egg is dark coloured, and about the size 
of an ordinary fowl’s egg. As a rule 
the egg is deposited during July, and 
the young is hatched towards the end 
of August, or, perhaps, the beginning 
of September. A queer little object the 
chick appears, as black and naked as a 
picaninny. The nest is usually situated 
romantically, on or near the ground, in 
an environment of ferns, often by the 
brink or at the fountain-head of a 
mountain streamlet. 
A Strange Nest. 
The nest proper is composed of the 
dark fibrous material of fern-tree trunks 
and roots, closely matted together with 
leaves, moss, earth, etc., the inside 
bottom being lined with the bird’s own 
feathers. It is about twice the size and 
the same shape as a football, with the 
end topped off for a rounded side en¬ 
trance. This nest proper is protected 
by a kind of outer nest, consisting of 
large sticks and twigs and occasionally 
portions of ferns. Armed with a 
special permit to collect an egg or two 
for scientific observations, and long 
before the beauty of the fern gullies of 
the Dandenongs was desecrated by 
vandals, and before the State forest was 
thrown open to village settlers, my old 
friend the ranger and I spent a day in 
the mountains Lyre Bird nesting. After 
an early breakfast we ascend our first 
gully, the course being indicated by 
ground ferns, tree ferns, and open hazel 
scrub, moderately studded with large 
trees. When almost at the head of the 
gully my companion shouts joyously. I 
am soon at his side, and we gaze upon a 
rare prize—the veritable nest and egg of 
the Buln-Buln. The nest is by a crystal 
spring, cunningly concealed in ferns. 
Searching for Eggs. 
Flushed with such early success, we 
gleefully hasten across the steep face of 
the mountain and enter a second gully. 
Good fortune favours me this time, and 
1 find my nest in a similar position to 
the first, but it is slightly smaller and 
more compact, the egg also being more 
beautifully mottled and lighter in 
colour. A third gully brings us to an 
exceedingly greasy ground, where at 
times we have great difficulty in- main¬ 
taining our equilibrium. AVe hunt this 
gjilly to its source, and emerge on the 
saddle of the range. Travelling along 
for some distance through giant timber, 
we make a dip to the right into a hollow. 
This—the fourth gully—proves some¬ 
what boggy. In the fifth gully we dis¬ 
cover the deserted diggings of gold pros¬ 
pectors. The sixth and seventh gullies 
are much like the rest in character: 
indeed, all the courses are thickly 
timbered, with as much lying on the 
ground as there is standing. In explor¬ 
ing the scrub our greatest difficulty is 
clambering over huge dead trees, which 
at all seasons are damp and slippery, 
more especially at this (winter) period 
of the year. 
Homeward Bound. 
The afternoon is far spent when we 
direct our thoughts homeward, and we 
decide to make the eighth gully the last. 
