[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—I have been waiting to this length for some Australian ornithologist to point out the omission from the contributions of Messrs. Ogilvie and Ramsay of what every " dinkum Bushman " will declare is our most -wonderful song bird, perhaps the champion singer of the world. And of him— for it is only the male bird that sings—anon.
Some months ago I was granted a very special fishing permit on one of the catchment areas of Sydney's water supply, the Cataract Dam. Covering the area of a respectable Norwegian fiord and lying some 1,700 feet above sea-level, it is remote and inaccessible and fringed with primeval forests and gorges now turned into sylvan creeks.
Obligingly conveyed by the Ranger in a small outboard motor I was deposited far up one of these creeks and left on the bank to be called for " in a few hours." The day was hot, and sinking back on a cushion of ti-tree scrub, I com- menced to rig my fishing gear, when in less than a quarter of an hour I heard the chug-chug-chug of what I took to be my boat returning at short notice. Jumping to my feet I looked down stream and up stream' but saw no sign of her. Greatly wondering I sat down again, when—chug-chug-chug, that unmistakable exhaust noise started again. Then it dawned upon me that if I sat per- fectly motionless I might possibly be the lucky auditor of the Bushman's rarest concert, and so it was. The chug- noise gave place to the whirr of a circular saw, and then with the purest flute-like tones of the nightingale followed mimicry of every bird that sings in our bush, coupled by real cadenza s of divine beauty.
After half an hour, curiosity beat me and I parted my
leafy screen and peered through into a little ferny glade just off the bank. There, on an earthen mound of its own building, a song and play platforni of some eight feet in circumference, and perhaps nine inches high at the apex, strutted a beautiful' Lyre Bird (Menura Superba, gallinaceous, allied to the Bird of. Paradise, anatomy of the Thrush), his tail erect to twenty- four inches or more, a perfect lyre, strings and all. I have heard a nightingale at its best and to my thinking it has no such tones and not a quarter of the range of that shy, rare bird. A snapping twig, and with a stutter it was gone and I do not suppose that upon this earth I shall listen to such a' concert again.
With the scent of the trampled boronia blossom and the dew drenched wattles around me, I thought sadly of they libel, " Australia ! the country of flowers without scent and birds without song ! "—I am, Sir, &c., EDGAR A. HOLDEN. I Warrigal Club, Sydney, N.S.W.
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