which would be our major scale of E were not the keynote A. The names imply an Asiatic origin. We need not here pursue further the much-debated question of Greek scales and their derivation; it will suffice 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-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.)
See the article by Théodore Reinach in Daremberg and Saglio, Antiguités grecques et romaines; Wilhelm Johnsen, Die Lyra, ein Beitrag zur griechischen Kunstgeschichte (Berlin, 1876); Hortense Panum, “Harfe und Lyra in Nord Europa,” Intern. Mus. Ges., Sbd. vii. 1, pp. 1-40 (Leipzig, 1905); A. J. Hipkins, “Dorian and Phrygian, reconsidered from a non-harmonic point of view,” in Intern. Mus. Ges. (Leipzig, 1903), iv. 3.
[1] See Ed. Gerhard, Auserlesene griech. Vasenbilder, part iii. (Berlin, 1847), pl. 236 and p. 157.
[2] See Aristotle, Polit. v. 6. 5.
LYRE-BIRD, the name by which one of the most remarkable birds Of Australia is commonly known, the Menura superba or M. novae-hollandiae of ornithologists. It was first observed in 1798 in New South Wales, 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 1799, it was described by General Davies as forming a new genus of birds, in the Linnean Society’s Transactions (vi. p. 207, pl. xxii.), no attempt, however, being made to fix its systematic place. In 1802 L. P. Vieillot figured and described it in a supplement to his Oiseaux Dorés as a bird-of-Paradise (ii. pp. 30 seq., pls. 14-16), from drawings by Sydenham Edwards, sent him by Parkinson, the manager of the Leverian Museum. The first to describe any portion of its anatomy was T. C. Eyton, who in 1841 (Ann. Nat. History, vii. pp. 49-53) perceived that it was a Passerine bird and that it presented some points of affinity to the South American genus Pteroptochus. In 1867 Huxley stated that he was disposed to divide his very natural assemblage the Coracomorphae (essentially identical with Eyton’s Insessores) into two groups, “one 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.[2] In 1875 A. Newton put forth the opinion in his article on birds, in the 9th edition of this Encyclopaedia, that Menura had an ally in another Australian form, Atrichia (see [Scrub-Bird]), which he had found to present peculiarities hitherto unsuspected, and he regarded them as standing by themselves, though each constituting a distinct family. This opinion was partially adopted in the following year by A. H. Garrod, who (Proc. Zool. Society, 1876, p. 518) formally placed these two genera together in his group of Abnormal Acromyodian Oscines under the name of Menurinae; ornithologists now generally recognize at once the alliance and distinctness of the families Menuridae and Atrichiidae, and place them together to form the group Suboscines of the Diacromyodian Passeres.
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Since the appearance in 1865 of J. Gould’s Handbook to the Birds of Australia, little important 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 getting sight of one. Those who wish to see it must advance only while it is singing or scratching up the earth and leaves; and to watch its actions they must keep perfectly still. 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 ft. and afford an easy shot ere it has time to ascend farther or escape as it does by leaps. Natives are said to hunt it by fixing on their heads 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 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 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.