LYREBIRDS

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 19825, 30 September 1936, Page 4

LYREBIRDS

START HATCHING FAMILY.

Birth notice: To Mr. and Mrs.

Menura Novaehollandiae, of Springwood, New South Wales, a baby (sex undetermined). Both doing well.

This notice has not yet appeared in the advertising columns. To naturalists and many others it is a highly interesting news item, for it announces the hatching of v/hat is believed to be the first lyrebird ever to be incubated in captivity.

The hen of a pair of lyrebirds kept as pets by Mr. and Mrs. J. Coyle, of Springwood, has achieved outstanding notoriety in the realm of aviculture .for her effort, after weeks of tedious sitting on a single egg.

Clad in sooty down, and with strong legs and claws on which, in the wild, it would have to rely to secure food in later life, and having a lusty appetite, the young one was heralded on arrival by much manifestation of parental excitement. At present it huddles in the deep nesting chamber, which is lined with down from the mother's body, but gives promise of sitting up shortly and taking the first look at its surroundings. The arrival of the baby lyrebird marks the culmination of considerable effort on the part of Mr. and Mrs. Coyle to ensure a successful issue. No one has been permitted to go near the birds for some weeks past. On two or three occasions previously the birds showed their resentment of the lack of privacy in their domestic affairs by tearing the nest to fragments after the egg was laid. Then, on another occasion, a nest was robbed, presumably by a rat. When the present nest was built in a thick tree within the enclosure visitors were discouraged from getting more than a distant view of the birds from the yard, and they were left to carry on incubation undisturbed. The nest, a large domed structure, comprised a barrow-load of sticks and similar material. Mr. and Mrs. Coyle have had remarkable success with their lyrebirds since, some years ago, they introduced them to a large wire-netted enclosure from the Blue Mountain gullies. The pair have become sufficiently tame to perch upon the knees and shoulders of strangers when food is offered them.

Official approval tc keep the birds in captivity was given some time ago by the Chief Secretary (Mr. Chaffey).