Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
THE FALSE SONG BIRDS
THE LYRE-BIRDS
Prince Albert's Lyre-bird
Prince Albert's Lyre-bird, however, is not only considerably different in plumage — lacking the lyriform tail — but has somewhat different habits. Thus instead of the mounds each bird forms three or four”corroborying places”as the wood sawyers call them, consisting of holes scratched in the sandy ground, being about two and a half feet in diameter by sixteen, eighteen, or twenty inches, and three or four hundred yards apart. When approached cautiously the bird may be seen at one or the other of these holes, into which it frequently jumps and seems to be feeding and then ascends and struts round and round the place, imitating with its powerful musical voice any bird it may chance to hear about it. It is recorded that one which had taken up its quarters within two hundred yards of a sawyer's home soon learned to imitate all the sounds of the household, such as the crowing of the cocks, the cackling of the hens, the barking and howling of the dogs, and the painful screeching of the sharpening or filing of the saw. Its own whistle is said to be exceedingly beautiful and varied. Recently a Mr. M'Ncilly, of Drouin, Australia, has described a Lyre-bird which he has had in a state of domestication about his farm for a period of twenty years. It was a male, and he attained the full perfection of plumage in six or seven years, becoming a great favorite about the place.”There appears to be nothing he could not mimic. The following are a few of his favorite imitations: the noise of a horse and dray moving slowly, with the play of the wheels in the axle boxes, chains rattling, etc.; an occasional 'Gee up, Bess'; the sound of a violin, piano, cornet, cross-cut saw, etc. All the more frequent noises heard about the farm the bird learnt to perfection, such as a pig being killed, dog howling, child crying, flock of Parrots, jackass laughing, and many other imitations of calls of small birds."