little, tiddy-tiny hooks (though such soft little things don't look like hooks a bit), which are called barbules, with which they catch hold of each other, and won't let each other go. That is why the web of a feather--on each side of the quill--is so smooth and even. But, now, in these wonderful feathers of the Lyre-bird, the little delicate things (the barbs) which make the webs are much fewer than in ordinary feathers, and they have no little hooks to catch hold of each other with, and instead of being all together, they are a quarter of an inch apart, and wave about, each by itself, looking like very delicate threads floating from the long slender quill of the feather. And that, too, is how those beautiful plume-feathers of the Birds of Paradise are formed, and you have seen something like it in the long ones of the peacock's tail. The tail of the Lyre-bird is not so grand, perhaps, as that of the peacock, but it is more graceful and delicate, and on the whole, I _think_ (for on such points one can never be sure) it is still more wonderful. But now is it not very strange that any bird should have a tail like that--a tail that is shaped like Apollo's lyre? Well, I will tell you how it happened, for it is one of those things that requires an explanation--and is lucky. Once the great god Apollo (who is the god of music and song) was walking in Australia and playing upon his lyre. Now, I must tell you, at that time--it was a very long time ago--the Lyre-bird had not a tail like it has now, but quite an ordinary one; so, as it is only its tail that is _extra_ordinary, it was quite an ordinary bird. But although it was ordinary in appearance, it was extremely musical, as it is now--I must tell you that--and also a wonderful imitator of every sound that can be made. The Lyre-bird can imitate all the different notes of other birds, as well as the barking of dogs, the mewing of cats, and the conversation of people.