Lyre Bird
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Lyre Bird. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
Menura superba (or novæ hollandiæ), an insectivorous Australian bird, placed by Professor Huxley in his Coracomorphæ. Habitat New South Wales, the S. part of Queensland, W 199 LYRE BIRD and perhaps some parts of the colony of Victoria. The lyre lyre bird is not se large as a hen-pheasant; plumage, sootybrown, relieved by rufous on chin, throat, some of the wing-feathers, and the tailcoverts. The 16 rectrices are developed in the male in the extraordinary fashion that gives the bird its English name. The two exterior have the outer web very narrow, and the inner very broad, and they curve at first outward, then somewhat inward, and near the tip outward again, bending round so as to present a lyre-like form. The middle pair of feathers have the outer web broad and the inner web very narrow; they cross near their base, and then diverge, bending round forward near the tip. The remaining 12 feathers are thinly furnished with barbs and present a hairlike appearance.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a perching bird of Australia. Like other animals of this region its makeup is contrary to all rules. It has the grasping feet of a perching bird, the body of a domestic hen, the appearance of a pheasant, and leads the life of a grouse. The male is remarkable for a showy tail somewhat like that of a peacock, the outside feathers of which curve inward, then outward at the tips like the frame of a lyre. It lives a shy life in the scrub. It nests on the ground. Lyre bird. Life-size
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Both accounts describe the tail in loving detail and say nothing at all about the lyrebird's voice, which is now the first thing anyone mentions: the superb lyrebird (Menura novaehollandiae, the name now preferred over Collier's Menura superba) is the most accomplished vocal mimic among birds, weaving other species' calls into song, and film of it doing so — notably for David Attenborough's BBC series — made it globally famous. Neither entry notes that there are two species, the second being Albert's lyrebird of the Queensland–New South Wales border ranges. Modern work has also recast the bird ecologically, as a soil-turning "ecosystem engineer" whose raking of the forest floor shifts large quantities of litter and soil each year. Aiton's 1910 remark that it "lives a shy life in the scrub" still holds, but the scrub itself is the worry: the 2019–20 Australian bushfires burned through a large share of the superb lyrebird's forest habitat and pushed its conservation status up the agenda.
Written for this edition, 2026.