THE ARISTOCRACY OF THE CREST 103 



Whip-Bird of the coastal fastnesses, and the Shrike- 

 Tit has often struck me as being an arboreal edition 

 of Oreoica, the Bell-Bird. 



Possibly this latter pair of birds are only dis- 

 tantly related on a scientific basis, but, as there 

 is no other genus between them, they are always 

 put side by side in the school of ornithology. 

 Maybe they were, "in the dark backward and 

 abysm of time," brothers akin, but, as the 

 ages rolled on, one section of the family grew 

 as fond of the tree-tops as the other was of the 

 ground, until, finally, there evolved some very 

 distinct differences between them. And yet they 

 have much in common. There is the crest to begin 

 with, together with a somewhat similar scheme of 

 color markings about the head and throat; then, 

 they both have the quality of ventriloquism in their 

 notes, and, what is more marked, a very similar 

 "charring" chatter when excited. Again, they are 

 both endemic birds, and are almost always to be 

 noted in the same class of country, the lightly- 

 timbered eucalypt forests, though the Shrike-Tit is 

 not averse to dwelling in the thick, damp jungles of 

 the east coast if there be sufficient gum trees therein 

 for it to forage and gambol among. 



The Crested Bell-Bird (Oreoica cristata} must not 

 be confused with the silver-voiced Bell-Miner 

 (Manorhina melanophrys) of Kendall's poem. The 

 latter bird is a Honeyeater, which does not venture 

 away from the thickly-vegetated areas of the 

 eastern seaboard, and, moreover, it is as com- 

 munistic as the Bell-Bird is solitary. A choir of Bell- 

 Miners, each one supplying an individual "Tink," 



