175 
in quest of Prince Albert's Lyre-bird . 
Durrigan, from which place shortly afterwards I left for Sydney. 
I made the blacks a present of all the stores, which amounted to 
a considerable quantity of flour, tea, sugar, tobacco, pumpkins, 
and old clothes, and ordered a new gown to be made for Polly 
(Davy's gin). This she wore on the day of my leaving, making 
in some measure a better appearance than in her native polish 
of snakes'-fat and charcoal. 
The following is a short summary of the result of my investi¬ 
gations into the habits of Menura alberti. 
This bird has been hitherto found only on the Richmond and 
Tweed Rivers, in the dense brushes which clothe the mountains 
in those districts. It is most remarkable that, although similar 
mountains and brushes exist on the rivers 'both to the north and 
to the south of the Richmond and Tweed, this Menura is not to 
be found in them. The range of the species appears to be 
limited to a patch of country not wider than eighty by sixty 
miles; for though I have not been able to prove this fact myself, 
for want of time, yet I fancy the information which I have ob¬ 
tained is pretty correct, coming, as it does, from sawyers and 
blacks who are frequently travelling from one river to another. 
The habits of Menura alberti are very similar to those of M . 
superba , as described by Mr. Gould. Having seen and watched 
both of these birds on their playgrounds, I find the M. alberti 
far superior in its powers of mocking and imitating the cries 
and songs of others of the feathered race to the M. superba; and 
its own peculiar cry or song is different, being of a much louder 
and fuller tone. I once listened to one of these birds that had 
taken up its quarters within 200 yards of a sawyer's hut, and 
had made himself perfect with all the noises of the sawyer's 
homestead. He imitated the crowing of the cocks, the cackling 
of the hens, and the barking and howling of the dogs, and even 
the painful screeching of sharpening or filing the saw. I shot 
him in the act of crowing. I have heard some persons say that 
the Menura is polygamous, but I never saw more than a pair 
together. The cock bird commences to sing at the first dawn 
of day. Each of them appears to have its walk or boundary, 
never infringing on another's ground. I have heard them day 
after day in the same spots, seldom nearer than a quarter of a 
