Besides the Académie des Sciences, Belles Lettres, et Arts | (founded in 1700), Lyons possesses societies of agriculture, natural history, useful arts and sciences, geography, and horticulture.

The Hôtel Dieu, instituted in the beginning of the 6th century by King Childebert, is still one of the chief establishments of its kind in the city, and contains 929 beds. Its façade, fronting the Quai du Rhone for 1060 feet, was commenced according to the designs of Soufflot, architect of the Pantheon at Paris. The Hospice de la Charité and the military hospital are a little larger than the Hôtel Dieu. The Hospice de l'Antiquaille, at Fourvières (2000 beds), occupies the site of the ancient palace of the prætorian prefects, in which Germanicus, Claudius, and Caracalla were born. Lyons has many other benevolent institutions, and is also the centre of the operations of the Propagation de la Foi.

The museum is one of the best provincial collections in France, alike in its ancient, medieval, and modern departments. Among the Gallo-Roman inscriptions, in which it is particularly rich, are the bronze tables discovered at Lyons in 1528, which contain the speech of the emperor Claudius in regard to the admission of the citizens of Gallia Comata into the Roman senate. The numismatic collection (30,000 pieces) includes a series of the coins struck at Lyons from 43 B.c. to 1857. There is a special gallery of works of Lyonese painters; and the Bernard collection of about 300 pictures is kept entire.

The museum of natural history (for which a new building is to be erected in the Parc de la Tête d'Or) contains a zoological department ranking next to that of Paris, and mineralogical, geological, and anthropological sections the last enriched with specimens from the classic site of Solutré (Saône and Loire). The museum of art and industries, founded in 1864 by the chamber of commerce, is divided into three sections, the first intended to illustrate the various conceptions of the beautiful formed by different peoples, the second to show the whole method of the textile industry, and the third to give an historical conspectus of woven textures. The Guimet Museum, in a special building in the Tête d'Or, consists of objects brought from the extreme East (mainly by M. Émile Guimet) and designed to facilitate the comparative study of religions, especially those of the Eastern world. Since 1880 the institution has published its Annales, consisting of original essays or translations of foreign works.

The library of the school of arts contains 65,000 volumes and 22,000 engravings, and the town library 108,000 volumes and 1300 manuscripts, about 600 of the printed works being incunabula, and 25 of the MSS. belonging to the Carlovingian period. In the latter institution is the great terrestrial globe made at Lyons in 1701, indicating the great African lakes, the rediscovery of which has been one of the events of the present century.

Under the Romans Lyons was admirably provided with water. Three ancient aqueducts on the Fourvières level, from Montroman, Mont d'Or, and Mont Pilat, can still be traced; and the last was no less than 52 miles long, and capable of supplying 11,000,000 gallons per day. Magnificent remains of this work may be seen at St Irénée and Chaponost. Traces also exist along the Rhone of a subterranean canal conveying the water of the river to a naumachia. At present the water supply of Lyons is obtained from the Rhone by powerful hydraulic engines situated above the town, which raise the water to the Montessuy and the Fourvières plateaus, 456 feet above the low level of the river. The reservoirs are capable of supplying 1,765,829 cubic feet of water per day.

Agrippa made Lyons the starting-point of the principal Roman roads throughout Gaul; and it still remains an

important centre in the general system of communication. The Saône above the town and the Rhone below have large barge and steamboat traffic; and the latter river above the town may be used by steamboats during summer as far as Aix in Savoy. Navigation, however, is often interrupted, even below the town, by the lowness of the water, and a canal is projected to remedy this defect. The current of the Saône is less rapid than that of the Rhone, and is controlled by weirs.

The railway from Paris to Marseilles has two stations (Vaise and Perrache) in Lyons; and the line from Lyons to Geneva two (Brotteaux and St Clair).. The Montbrison line starts from St Paul, on the right of the Saône. The terminus of Part-Dieu for the newly-opened East of Lyons line is between Perrache and Brotteaux. Within the town there are two rope railways, the first mounting to Fourvières, and the second, popularly called the ficelle, from Rue Terme to Croix-Rousse.

In a city of such importance as Lyons the number of industries is naturally large, but by far the most extensive of them all is the silk manufacture. Derived from Italy, this industry rapidly developed under the patronage of Francis I., Henry II., and Henry IV.; and from time to time new kinds of fabrics were invented-silk stuffs woofed with wool or with gold and silver threads, shawls, watered silks, poplins, velvets, satinades, moires, &c. In the beginning of the present century Jacquart introduced his famous loom by which a single workman was enabled to produce elaborate fabrics as easily as the plainest web, and by changing the "cartoons" to make the most different textures on the same looms. In the 17th century the silk manufacture employed at Lyons 9000 to 12,000 looms. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes the number sank to 3000 or 4000; but after the Reign of Terror was past it rose again about 1801 to 12,000. At present there are about 70,000 in operation when no great commercial crisis comes to diminish production, giving employment to about 140,000 weavers. There are also a large number of persons engaged in the silk-worm hatcheries established in France. The workmen live for the most part in the Croix-Rousse quarter, but many of them inhabit the outskirts. The mean annual value of the silk goods manufactured is estimated at 375,000,000 francs (£15,000,000),-250,000,000 representing the value of the raw material and 125,000,000 the value of the labour. Including the purchase of raw materials and the sale of the manufactured goods, the silk trade gives a total turnover of 1000 million francs (£40,000,000). A special office (known as La Condition des Soies) determines the weight and nature of the silk. Extensive dye-works, chemical works, breweries, pork factories, engineering works, printing establishments, and hat factories represent the secondary industries of the place. A large trade is carried on in chestnuts brought from the neighbouring departments, and known as marrons de Lyon. •

per

The earliest Gallic occupants of the territory at the confluence of the Rhone and the Saône were the Segusians. In 590 B.C., some Greek refugees from the banks of the Hérault, having obtained mission of the natives to establish themselves beside the Croix in 43 B.C. Munatius Plancus brought a Roman colony to Fourvières Rousse, called their new town by the Gallic name Lugdunum; and from Vienne. This settlement soon acquired importance, and was made by Agrippa the starting point of four great roads. Augustus, besides building aqueducts, temples, and a theatre, gave it a the sixty cities of Gallia Comata. Under the emperors the colony senate and made it the seat of an annual assembly of deputies from of Forum Vetus and the municipium of Lugdunu.a were united, receiving the jus senatus. The town was burnt by Nero in 59 A.D., and afterwards rebuilt by him in a much finer style; it was also adorned by Trajan, Adrian, and Antoninus. The martyrdom of Pothinus and Blandina occurred under Marcus Aurelius (177 A.D.), and in 197 a still more savage persecution of the Christians took place under Septimius Severus, in which Irenæus. according to

some authors, perished. After having been ravaged by the barbarians and abandoned by the empire, Lyons in 478 became capital of the kingdom of the Burgundians. It afterwards fell into the hands of the Franks, and suffered severely from the Saracens, but revived under Charlemagne, and after the death of Charles the Bald was made the capital of the kingdom of Provence. From 1024 it was a fief of the emperor of Germany. Subsequently the superiority over the town was a subject of dispute between the archbishops of Lyons and the counts of Forez; but the royal supremacy was finally established under Louis IX. and Philip the Handsome. The citizens were constituted into a commune ruled by freely elected consuls (1320). In the 13th century two ecclesiastical councils were held at Lyons-one in 1245, presided over by Innocent IV., at which the emperor Frederick II. was deposed; the second, the cecumenical, under the presidency of Gregory X., in 1274, at which five hundred bishops met. Pope Clement V. was crowned here in 1305, and his successor John XXII. elected in 1316. The Protestants obtained possession of the place in 1562; their acts of violence were fiercely avenged in 1572 after the St Bartholomew massacre. Under Henry III. Lyons sided with the League; but it pronounced in favour of Henry IV. In 1793 it rose against the Convention, but was com pelled to yield to the army of the republic after enduring a siege of seven weeks (October 10). Terrible chastisement ensued: the name of Lyons was changed to that of Ville-affranchie; the demolition of its buildings was set about on a wholesale scale; and vast numbers of the proscribed, whom the scaffold had spared, were butchered with grape shot. The town resumed its old name after the fall of Robespierre, and the terrorists in their turn were drowned in large numbers in the Rhone. Napoleon rebuilt the Place Bellecour, reopened the churches, and made the bridge of

Tilsitt over the Saône between Bellecour and the cathedral.

In

1814-15 Lyons was occupied by the Austrians, under the government of Louis Philippe, and in 1870-71 there were several bloody émeutes; in 1856 a disastrous flood laid waste the Brotteaux and rendered 20,000 persons homeless. An international exhibition was held here in 1872. Among the many distinguished natives of Lyons may be mentioned Germanicus and the emperors Claudius, Marcus Aurelius, and Caracalla; Ampère the physicist; Richerand, Récamier, and Bonnet; De Jussieu the naturalist, J. B. Say the economist, Barème the mathematician, Suchet the marshal, Roland the Girondin, and Jacquard the inventor. (G. ME.)

LYONS, EDMUND LYONS, LORD (1790-1858), British admiral, was descended from a family connected with Antigua, and previously with Cork, and was born at Burton near Christchurch, Hampshire, 21st November 1790. He entered the navy at an early age, and served in the Mediterranean, and afterwards in the East Indies, where in 1810 he won promotion by distinguished bravery. He became post-captain in 1814, and in 1828 commanded the "Blonde" frigate at the blockade of Navarino. He took part with the French in the capture of the castle of Morea, receiving for his conduct the orders of St Louis of France and of the Redeemer of Greece. Shortly before his ship was paid off in 1835 he was knighted. From 1840 till the outbreak of hostilities with Russia Lyons was employed on the diplomatic service, being minister plenipotentiary to the court of Greece until 1849, then until 1851 ambassador to the Swiss cantons, whence he was transferred to a similar position at Stockholm. On the outbreak of the war with Russia he was appointed second in command of the British fleet in the Black Sea under Admiral Dundas, whom he succeeded in the chief command in 1854. As admiral of the inshore squadron he had the direction of the landing of the troops in the Crimea, which he conducted with marvellous energy and despatch. According to Kinglake, Lyons shared the "intimate counsels" of Lord Raglan in regard to the most momentous questions of the war, and throughout the Crimean campaign he toiled, with a painful consuming passion," to guard against disaster, to clear away overpowering difficulties and obstacles, and to win the final purpose of the expedition. His actual achievements in battle were principally two-the support he rendered with his guns to the French at the Alma in attacking the left flank of the Russians, and the bold and brilliant part he took with his ship the "Agamemnon" in the first bombardment of the forts of Sebastopol; but his constant vigilance, his multifarious activity, and his suggestions and counsels were much more advantageous to the allied

cause than his specific exploits. In 1855 he was created vice-admiral, and at the conclusion of the war he was, in June 1856, raised to the peerage with the title of Lord Lyons of Christchurch. He died November 23, 1858. LYRA, NICOLAUS DE (c. 1270-1340), a well-known medieval commentator, was a native of Lyre, near Evreux, Normandy, and was born most probably about 1270; at least he was still young when in 1291 he entered the Franciscan order at Verneuil. He afterwards studied at Paris, and became doctor of theology and a successful teacher there. In 1325 he became provincial of his order for Burgundy; and on October 23, 1340, he died at Paris. Lyra (Lyranus) was the author of a controversial treatise against the Jews, entitled De Messia, ejusque adventu præterito, and of a Tractatus de idoneo ministrante et suscipiente sancli allaris sacramentum, but by far his most important work is the Postillæ perpetuæ sire brevia commentaria in universa Biblia, first printed at Rome (5 vols. fol., 1471-72), and often subsequently. It may be said fo mark the first beginnings of a school of natural exegesis; for, though recognizing the old doctrine of a fourfold sense

"Litera gesta docet, quid credas allegoria, Moralis quid agas, quo tendas anagogia' Lyra explicitly maintained and sought to give effect to the prin ciple that the foundation of every mystical exposition must first be firmly laid by ascertaining the literal meaning. His qualities as an interpreter of Scripture included, besides comparative freedom from dogmatic prepossession, a good knowledge of Hebrew and a fair mentaries, and it is through the influence of Rashi upon Lyra that acquaintance with Greek. Luther was acquainted with his comso many traces of the exegesis of that rabbi are found in Luther's writings; hence the oft-quoted saying, "Si Lyra non lyrasset, Lutherus non saltasset." See vol. xi. p. 601.

LYRE. Of all musical instruments the lyre has been. the most associated with poetry, the recitations of Greeks having been accompanied by it. Yet the lyre was not of Greek origin; no root in the language has been discovered for Aúpa, although the special names bestowed upon varieties of the instrument are Hellenic. We have to seek in Asia the birthplace of the genus, and to infer its introduction into Greece through Thrace or Lydia. The historic heroes and improvers of the lyre were of the Eolian or Ionian colonies, or the adjacent coast bordering on the Lydian empire, while the mythic masters, Orpheus, Musæus, and Thamyris, were Thracians. Notwithstanding the Hermes tradition of the invention of the lyre in Egypt, the Egyptians seem to have adopted it themselves from Assyria or Babylonia.

To define the lyre, it is necessary clearly to separate it from the allied harp and guitar, both, as far as we have record, instruments of as great antiquity. In its primal form the lyre differs from the harp, of which the earliest, simplest notion is found in the bow and bowstring; while the guitar (and lute) can be traced back to the typical "nefer" of the fourth Egyptian dynasty, the fretted finger-board of which, permitting the production of different notes by the shortening of the string, is as different in conception from the lyre and harp as the flute with holes to shorten the column of air is from the syrinx or Pandean pipes. The frame of a lyre consists of a hollow body or sound-chest (xelov). From this sound-chest are raised two arms (nxes), which are sometimes hollow, and are bent both outward and forward. They are bound near the top by a crossbar or yoke (¿vyóv, Čúywμa, or, from its having once beer a reed, κáλaμos). Another crossbar (uáyas, voλúpiov), fixed on the sound-chest, forms the bridge which transmits the vibrations of the strings. The deepest note was the farthest from the player; but, as the strings did not differ much in length, more weight may have been gained for the deeper notes by thicker strings, as in the violin and similar modern instruments, or they were tuned with slacker tension. The strings were never of wire, the drawing of which was unknown to the nations of antiquity, but of gut (xopdý, whence chord). They were XV. 15

stretched between the yoke and bridge, or to a tailpiece below the bridge. There were two ways of tuning: one was to fasten the strings to pegs which might be turned (κόλλαβοι, κόλλοπες); the other was to change the place of the string upon the crossbar; probably both expedients were simultaneously employed. It is doubtful whether Xopdoτóvos meant the tuning key or the part of the instrument where the pegs were inserted. The extensions of the arms above the yoke were known as κépara, horns. The number of strings varied at different epochs, and possibly in different localities,-four, seven, and ten having been favourite numbers. They were, as already said, used without a finger-board, no Greek description or representation having ever been met with that can be construed as referring to one. Nor was a bow possible, the flat soundboard being an insuperable impediment. The plectrum, however (TAKTρov), was in constant use at all times. It was held in the right hand to set the upper strings in vibration (κρέκειν, κρούειν τῷ πλήκτρῳ); at other times it hung from the lyre by a ribbon. The fingers of the left hand touched the lower strings (vádλewv).

With Greek authors the lyre has several distinct names; but we are unable to connect these with anything like certainty to the varieties of the instrument. Chelys (xéλvs, “tortoise") may mean the smallest lyre, which, borne by one arm or supported by the knees, offered in the sound-chest a decided resemblance to that familiar animal. That there was a difference between lyre and cithara (kápa) is certain, Plato and other writers separating them. Hermes and Apollo had an altar at Olympia in common because the former had invented the lyre and the latter the cithara. Perhaps the lyre and chelys on the one hand, and the cithara and FIG. phorminx on the other, were similar or nearly identical. Apollo is said to have carried a golden phorminx. But lyre has always been accepted as the generic name of the family, and understood to include all varieties. The large lyre was supported by a strong ribbon slung over the player's shoulder, passing through

holes beneath the yoke in the arms of the instrument, and caught by the player's left hand, the ends hanging in a sash-like fashion. This cithara, or, it may be, phorminx (φόρμιγξ, " portable lyre"), is frequently, by the vase painters, delineated as so held, -the plectrum, attached by another ribbon, being represented, when

not in use, as

1.-Chelys, from

a vase in the British Museum, where also are fragments of such an instrument,

the back of which is of shell.

pendent, or as in- Fra. 2.-Cithara or Phorminx, from a vase in terlaced between the British Museum. Best period of Greek the strings.

art.

Passing by the story of the discovery of the lyre from a vibrating tortoise-shell by Hermes, we will glance at the

or

real lyres of Egypt and Semitic Asia. The Egyptian lyre is unmistakably Semitic. The oldest representation that has been discovered is in one of the tombs of Beni Hassan, the date of the painting being in the 12th dynasty, that is, shortly before the invasion of the shepherd kings. In this painting, which both Rosellini and Lepsius have reproduced, an undoubted Semite carries a seven eight stringed lyre of fan-shaped form. The instrument has a four-cornered body and an irregular four-cornered frame above it, and the player carries it horizontally from his breast, just as a modern Nubian would his kissar. He plays as he walks, using both hands, a plectrum being in the right. This ancient lyre, dating 2000 B.C., exists to this day in a remarkable specimen preserved in the Berlin Museum (fig. 3), and is found again in form as well as in manner of holding in the Assyrian lyre Khorsabad. During the rule of the shepherds the lyre became naturalized in Egypt, and in the 18th dynasty it is frequently depicted, and with finer grace of form. In the 19th and 20th dynasties the lyre is sometimes still

of

H

more slender, or FIG. 3.-Egyptian Lyre now at Berlin. Drawn is quite unsymby permission of Director-General Schöne. metrical and very strong, the horns surmounted by heads of animals as in the Berlin one, which has horses' heads at those extremities. Prokesch copied one in the ruins of Wadi Halfa, splendid in blue and gold, with a serpent wound round it. The Egyptians always strung their lyres fan-shaped, like the modern Nubian kissar. Their paintings shew three to eight or nine strings, but the painters' accuracy may not be unimpeachable; the Berlin instrument had fifteen. The three-stringed lyre typified the three seasons of the Egyptian year-the water, the green, and the harvest; the seven, the planetary system from the moon to Saturn. The Greeks had the same notion of the harmony of the spheres.

There is no evidence as to what the stringing of the Greek lyre was in the heroic age. Plutarch says that Olympus and Terpander used but three strings to accompany their recitation. As the four strings led to seven and eight by doubling the tetrachord, so the trichord is connected with the hexachord or six-stringed lyre depicted on so many archaic Greek vases. We cannot insist on the accuracy of this representation, the vase painters being so little mindful of the complete expression of details; yet we may suppose their tendency would be rather to imitate than to invent a number. It was their constant practice to represent the strings as being damped by the fingers of the left hand of the player, after having been struck by the plectrum which he held in the right hand. Before the Greek civilization had assumed its historic form, there was likely to be great freedom and independence of different localities in the matter of lyre stringing, which is corroborated by the antique use of the chromatic (half-tone) and enharmonic (quartertone) tunings, pointing to an early exuberance, as in language when nations are young and isolated, and perhaps also to an Asiatic bias towards refinements of intonation, from which came the xpóa, the hues of tuning, old Greek modifications of tetrachords entirely disused in the classic period. The common scale of Olympus

remained, a double trichord which had served as the scaffolding for the enharmonic varieties.

We may regard the Olympus scale, however, as consisting of two tetrachords, eliding one interval in each, for the tetrachord, or

series of four notes, was very early adopted as the fundamental principle of Greek music, and its origin in the lyre itself appears sure. The basis of the tetrachord is the employment of the thumb and first three fingers of the left hand to twang as many strings, the little finger not being used on account of natural weakness. As a succession of three whole tones would form the disagreeable and untunable interval of a tritonus, two whole tones and a half-tone were tuned, fixing the tetrachord in the consonant interval of the perfect fourth. This succession of four notes being in the grasp of the hand was called ouλλaßh, just as in language a group of letters incapable of further reduction is called syllable. In the combination of two syllables or tetrachords the modern diatonic scales resemble the Greek so-called disjunct scale, but the Greeks knew nothing of our categorical distinctions of major and minor. We might call the octave Greek scale minor, according to our descending minor form, were not the keynote in the middle the thumb note of the deeper tetrachord. The upper tetrachord, whether starting from the keynote (conjunct) or from the note above (disjunct), was of exactly the sanie form as the lower, the position of the semitones being identical. The semitone was a limma (Appa), rather less than the semitone of our modern equal temperament, the Greeks tuning both the whole tones in the tetrachord by the same ratio of 8:9, which made the major third a dissonance, or rather would have done so had they combined them in what we call harmony. In melodious sequence the Greek tetrachord is decidedly moro agreeable to the ear than the corresponding series of our equal temperament. Aud although our scales are derived from combined tetrachords, in any system of tuning that we employ, be it just, mean-tone, or equal, they are less logical than the conjunct or disjunct systems accepted by the Greeks. But modern harmony is not compatible with them, and could not

have arisen on the Greek melodic lines. The conjunct scale of seven notes

tones were tuned, when enharmonic two quarter-tones, leaving respectively the wide intervals of a minor and major third, and both impure, to complete the tetrachord. (A. J. H.).

LYRE-BIRD, the name by which one of the most remarkable feathered inhabitants of Australia is commonly known, the Menura superba or M. novæ-hollandia of ornithologists. First discovered, January 24, 1798, on the other side of the river Nepean in New South Wales by an exploring party from Paramatta, under the leadership of one Wilson, a single example was brought into the settlement a few days after, and though called by its finders a "Pheasant "-from its long tail-the more learned of the colony seem to have regarded it as a Bird-of-Paradise.1 A specimen having reached England in the following year, it was described by General Davies as forming a new genus of birds, in a paper read before the Linnean Society of London, November 4, 1800, and subsequently published in that Society's Transactions (vi. p. 207, pl. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made to fix its systematic place. Other examples were soon after received, but Latham, who considered it a Gallinaceous bird, in 1801 knew of only five having arrived. The temporary cessation of hostilities in 1802 permitted Vieillot to become acquainted with this form, though not apparently with any published notice of it, and he figured and described it in a supplement to his Oiseaux Dorés as a Bird of Paradise (ii. pp. 30 sq., pls. 14-16), from drawings by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the manager of the Leverian Museum.2

It would be needless here to enter at any length on the various positions which have been assigned to this singular form by different systematizers-who had to judge merely

the lyre. When the disjunct scale

the octave scale attributed to Pythagoras, was admitted, to preserve the time-honoured seven strings one note had to be omitted; it was therefore customary to omit the C, which in Greek practice was a dissonance. The Greek names for the strings of seven and eight stringed lyres, the first note being highest in pitch and nearest the player, were as follows:-Nete, Paranete, Paramese; Mese, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate; or Nele, Paranete, Trile, Paramese; Mese, Lichanos, Parhypate, Hypate, the last four from Mese to Hypate being the finger tetrachord, the others touched with the plectrum. The highest string in pitch was called the last, vedrn; the lowest in pitch was called the highest, indrn, because it was, in theory at least, the longest string. The keynote and thumb string was éon, middle; the next lower was Alxavos, the first finger or lick. finger string; plan, the third, being in the plectrum division, was also known as feia, sharp, perhaps from the dissonant quality which we have referred to as the cause of its omission. The plectrum and finger tetrachords together were dianaov, through all; in

the disjunct scale, an octave.

In transcribing the Greek notes into our notation, the absolute pitch cannot be represented; the relative positions of the semitones are alone determined. We have already quoted the scale of Pythagoras, the Dorian or true Greek succession :

Shifting the semitone one degree upwards in each tetrachord, we have the Phrygian

Another degree gives the Lydian

which would be bur major scale of E were not the keynote A. The names imply an Asiatic origin. We will not pursue further the much debated question of Greek scales and their derivation; it will suffice here to remark that the outside notes of the tetrachords were fixed in their tuning as perfect fourths, --the inner strings being, as stated, in diatonic sequence, or when chromatic two half

66 one

portion of its anatomy was Eyton, who in 1841 (Ann. Nat. History, vii. pp. 49-53) perceived that it was truly a member of the Order then called Insessores, and that it presented some points of affinity to the South American genus Pteroptochus ; but still there were many who could not take advantage of this step in the right direction. In 1867 Professor Huxley stated that he was disposed to divide his very natural assemblage the Coracomorpha (essentially identical with Eyton's Insessores) into two groups, containing Menura, and the other all the other genera which have yet been examined" (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1867, p. 472)-a still further step in advance. In 1875 the present writer put forth the opinion in this work (BIRDS, vol. iii. p. 471) that Menura had an ally in another Australian form, Atrichia (see SCRUB-BIRD), which he had found to present peculiarities hitherto unsuspected, and accordingly regarded them as standing by themselves, though each constituting a distinct Family. This opinion was partially adopted in the following year by Garrod, who (Proc. Zool. Society, 1876, p. 518) formally placed these 1 Collins, Account of New South Wales, ii. pp. 87-92 (London, 1802).

Vieillot called the bird "Le Parkinson ".! and hence Bechstein, who seems to have been equally ignorant of what had been published in England concerning it, in 1811 (Kurze Uebersicht, &c., p. 134), designated it Parkinsonius mirabilis !! Shaw also, prior to 1813, figured it (Nat. Miscellany, xiv. p. 577) under the name of Paradisea parkinsoniana. The name " Menura lyra, Shaw," was quoted by Lesson in 1831 (Tr. d'Ornithologie, p. 473), and has been repeated by many copyists of synonymy, but the present writer cannot find that such a name was ever applied by Shaw. Vieillot's principal figure (ut supra), which has a common origin with that given by Collins, has been extenBively copied, in spite of its inartistic not to say inaccurate drawing. It is decidedly inferior to that of Davies (ut supra), the original describer and delineator.

He subsequently (Osteol. Avium, pp. 97, 98, pl. 3, F and Fl. 14) described and figured the skeleton.

Owing to the imperfection of the specimen at his disposal, Professor Huxley's brief description of the bones of the head in Menura is not absolutely correct. A full description of them, with elaborate figures, is given by Professor Parker in the same Society's Transactions (ix. pp. 306-309, pl. lvi. figs. 1-5).

The zoologists of Australia alone can do this, and the zoologists of other countries expect that they will.

Since the appearance in 1865 of Gould's Handbook to the Birds of Australia, little if any fresh information has been published concerning the habits of this form, and the account therein given must be drawn upon for what here follows. Of all birds, says that author, the Menura is the most shy and hard to procure. He has been among the rocky and thick "brushes "-its usual haunts-hearing its loud and liquid call-notes for days together without get ting sight of one. Those who wish to see it must advance only while it is occupied in singing or scratching up the earth and leaves; and to watch its actions they must keep perfectly still-though where roads have been made through the bush it may be more often observed and even approached on horseback. The best way of procuring an example seems to be by hunting it with dogs, when it will spring upon a branch to the height of 10 feet and afford an easy shot ere it has time to ascend further or escape as it does by leaps. Another method of stealing upon it is said to be practised by the natives, and is attained by the hunter fixing on his head the erected tail of a cock-bird, which alone is allowed to be seen above the brushwood. The greater part of its time is said to be passed upon the ground, and seldom are more than a pair to be found in company. One of the habits of the cock is to form small round hillocks, which he constantly visits during the day, mounting upon them and displaying his tail by erecting it over his head, drooping his wings, scratching and pecking at the soil, and uttering various cries-some his own natural notes, others an imitation of those of other animals. The wonderful tail, his most characteristic feature, only attains perfection in the bird's third or fourth year, and then not until the month of June, remaining until October, when the feathers are shed to be renewed. the following season. The food consists of insects, especially beetles and myriapods, as well as snails. The nest is always placed near to or on the ground, at the base of a rock or foot of a tree, and is closely woven of fine but strong roots or other fibres, and lined with feathers, around all which is heaped a mass, in shape of an oven, of sticks, grass, moss, and leaves, so as to project over and shelter the interior structure, while an opening in the side affords entrance and exit. Only one egg is laid, and this of rather large size in proportion to the bird, of a purplish-grey colour, suffused and blotched with dark purplish-brown.1

Incubation is believed to begin in July or August, and the young is hatched about a month later. It is at first covered with white down, and appears to remain for some weeks in the nest. How much more is needed to be known for a biography of this peculiar and beautiful creature may be inferred by those who are aware of the diligence with which the habits of the much more easily observed birds of the northern hemisphere have been recorded, and of the many interesting points which they present. It is greatly to be hoped that so remarkable a form as the Lyre-bird, the nearly sole survivor apparently of a very ancient race of beings, will not be allowed to become extinct-its almost certain fate so far as can be judged-without many more observations of its manners 1 The nest and egg of Menura alberti, now in the British Museum, are figured in Proc. Zool. Society, 1853, Aves, pl. 53. The egg of M. victoria is represented in Journ. für Ornithologie, 1856, pl. ii. fig. 18, under the name of M. superba, but the real egg of that species does not seem to have been figured at all

Several examples of Menura have been brought alive to Europe, but none have long survived in captivity. Indeed a bird of such active habits, and requiring doubtless facilities for taking violent exercise, could not possibly be kept long in confinement until the method of menageries is vastly improved, as doubtless will be the case some day, and, we may hope, before the disappearance from the face of the earth of forms of vertebrate life most instructive to the zoologist.

Three species of Menura have been indicated-the old M. superba, the Lyro-bird proper, now known for more than eighty years, which inhabits New South Wales, the southern part of Queensland, and perhaps some parts of the colony of Victoria; M. victoria, separated from the former by Gould (Proc. Zool. Soc., 1862, p. 23), and said to take its place near Melbourne; and M. alberti, first described by C. L. Bonaparte (Consp. Avium, i. p. 215) on Gould's authority, and, though discovered on the Richmond river in New South Wales, having apparently a more northern range than the other two. All those have the apparent bulk of a hen Pheasant, but are really much smaller, and their general plumage is of a sooty brown, relieved by rufous on the chin, throat, some of the wing-feathers, and the tailcoverts. The wings, consisting of twenty-one remiges, are rather short and rounded; the legs2 and feet very strong, with long, nearly straight claws. In the immature and female the tail is somewhat long, though affording no very remarkable character, except the possession of sixteen rectrices; but in the fully-plumaged male of M. superba and M. victoria it is developed in the extraordinary fashion that gives the bird its common English name. The two exterior feathers (fig. 1, a, b) have the outer web very narrow, the inner very broad, and they curve Fig. 1. at first outwards, then somewhat inwards, and near the tip outwards again, bending round forwards so as to present a lyre-like form. But this is not all; their broad inner web,

Fig. 2.

Fig. 3.

which is of a lively chestnut colour, is apparently notched at regular intervals by spaces that, according to the angle at which they are viewed, seem either black or transparent; and this effect is. on examination, found to be due to the barbs

The metatarsals are very remarkable in form, as already noticed by Eyton (loc. cit.), and their tendons strongly ossified,