QUEENSLAND and NORTHERN TERRITORY 63 



C. The Bell Miner is remarkable for its voice, the 

 sweetest notes of tinkling bells, ''softer than 

 slumber and sweeter than singing." It is the 

 wet forest bell-bird, while the bell-bird of the 

 dry forests is the Crested Bell-Bird (Oreoica). 

 Port Phillip is its further west, and the scrubs 

 of central-eastern Queensland its furthest 

 north. It loves the quiet of the gullies and 

 the damp timbered lowlands. 



DISTRIBUTION of the GRASS WARBLERS 



(Cisticolae) 



(Plate 1, Fig. 24) 



A. Extra Australian species. 



B. Australian species. 



The family is Indian and Australian. It is found 

 all over Australia, but not throughout the Island 

 State, Tasmania. It just touches the northern 

 coast and is found in the island fauna connecting 

 Tasmania and the mainland. Map 34 shows its 

 broad distribution. 



As its name implies, it is a grass loving bird and 

 a particularly shy one. Each season of the year 

 it changes its plumage markings, so that it would 

 appear as if there were four species, instead of one 

 with seasonal phases. 



The nesting ways of this bird are quite out of 

 the ordinary, the species being a tailor bird in so 

 far as it stitches together a few of the grass strands 



