
10 ; AUSTRALIAN ZOOLOGY. 
New South Wales, southern Queensland, Victoria, and South 
Australia. It is abundant in the Illawarra district, in the ravines 
and gullies extending from the vicinity of Appin to Wollongong. 
It isa denizen of the Liverpool Range, and the mountains of the 
Tumut country; Dr. Bennett found it in the latter district. It 
inhabits equally the brushes on the coast district and those that 
clothe the sides of the mountains. What is called the Menura 
victorie is found in Victoria and South Australia. It was abundant 
n South Gippsland and near Western Port. 
Fears are entertained (writes the Melbourne Aye, of Aug., 1893) 
that the lyre-bird is doomed to extinction. ‘The killing of it has 
been made illegal, but the market continues supplied with Menura 
tails, and the other day the Secretary of Customs had one sent to 
him anonymously, as if the intention were to publicly flout the law. 
There are more reasons than one why the lyre-bird should be pre- 
served. Froma purely utilitarian point of view it is of value, for 
it is insectivorous, and preys upon insects which are apt to prefer 
orchard fruit to their natural bush food. But the bird has as well 
a national and sentimental value. Next to the emu itis the most 
typical Australian bird. It is peculiar to Australia, for in no other 
country is it to be seen. Comparatively speaking it is a rara avis 
even in Australia itself. We are informed by Mr. French, the 
Government Entomologist, that the public has no conception of the 
enormous destruction which is going on, and that the law as it 
stands is of little use. Although it is against the law to kill a lyre- 
bird, there are, he says, hundreds of tails in the Melbourne shops, 
and hundreds go to Kurope by every mail steamer. If the police 
interefere they are told that the tails were purchased in New South 
Wales, and are unable to get a conviction. Mr. French, therefore, 
strongly urges that we should go a step further with our legislation 
by prohibiting the sale of tails. Something must be done, he says, 
or between the dealers and the foxes, the Victorian J/enura will be 
a bird of the past. He knows from personal experience that there 
are many lyre-birds even yet about Mount Baw Baw and in the 
interior of Croagingolong, but even in these places the destroyers are 
at work. The hen lays but one egg, and that only once a year ; 
consequently they cannot multiply rapidly even under the most 
favourable circumstances. It is safe to say that under present con- 
ditions, they do not multiply at all, and that judging from the tails 
offered for sale in Melbourne shops and at the wharfs, sad havoe is 
still being carried on amongst them. 
Australian museums have exhibits of these birds and their nests 
in large glass cases in which, by the skill of the ornithologist, some 
locality is imitated with its recumbent ferns, or ledge of a rock, and 
the nest placed so as to give visitors an idea of its natural site. In 
the Melbourne museum there are exhibits of the Menura superba 
from the Dandenong Ranges in Victoria and Mount Palmer in New 
South Wales. In 1867, a living lyre-bird arrived in London, and 
was located in the gardens of the Zoological Society. It had been 
sent from Sydney in the ‘‘La Hogue.” It attracted great attention 



