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LYRE-BIRD. ; 11 
in England. It had been obtained from Broughton Gate, Illawarra 
district, N.S. Wales. 
Food.—The food of the lyre-bird consists principally of insects, 
particularly centipeds and beetles. It also eats shelled snails. The 
gizzard is very strong and muscular. 
Species.—Of lyre-birds there are two, the Menura superba and 
the Menura alberti. Mr. Gould considered that there are three, the 
third being Menura victoriv, but this last has not been generally 
adopted. It has been pointed out that the differences in the 
plumage of the Port Phillip birds and those of New South Wales are 
too trivial to warrant the establishment of a third species for the 
former. Nevertheless, in some of the South Australian and Vic- 
torian specimens, the bars of the two outer tail feathers are more 
defined, especially at the base, and of a deeper tint than are those 
in the lyre-birds of New South Wales. The plumage of the former 
is also of aslightly darker hue. Such distinctions mark varieties 
rather thanspecies. These objections to a third species were mooted 
in a communication from Sydney, read before the Zoological Society, 
London, Mr. Gould being in the chair as vice-president. He 
exhibited several skins of his Menura victoriw, also an egg, anda 
chick only two days old. The upper parts of the young one were 
covered with sooty black down, which, near the head, assumed the 
form of ahood ; the under surface was sparsely clothed, the throat, 
flanks, and thighs being naked. It thus presented such an extra- 
ordinary appearance as to render it difficult for the most astute 
ornithologist to determine to what genus it belonged. 

Greav Green Cicapa—Cyclochila australasie. 
Description.—The colour of this species is pale-yellowish grass- 
green, or pale-tawny horn-brown, or various irregular mixtures of 
these two colours. The variation from all grass-green to all pale 
testaceous (shelly) tawny-brown is so gradual and irregular, when a 
large series is examined, that there cannot be a doubt of both 
extremes belonging to one species. The eyes are yellowish-grey ; 
the ocelli are amber-red, surrounded by a small black patch; the 
membrane of both pairs of wings is clear and unspotted. The males 
and females are much alike in colour; but the females are often 
larger in the expanse of wings, and have the head a little more 
acute than the males. The great width of the circularly dilated 
margin of the prothorax, between the head and the wings, is the 
main generic peculiarity separating this from the other cicads, with 
which it agrees in most other points in structure. The pupa re- 
sembles that of the C. me@rens, but is larger, and the tooth-like 
pine on the anterior legs are darker, larger, and stronger ; and 
the large basal tooth has a small additional spine near its base. 
Sound.—The song begins like the quacking of a duck for some 
time before breaking into the continuous ‘‘whir,” and is far louder 
than that of the C. merens, becoming perfectly unbearable and 
deafening where they abound. It is silent in wet weather and 
YIHOLOIA 40 WNISNW TWNOLLYN 
