108 MATESHIP WITH BIRDS 



those of various moths, with a sprinkling of the 

 caterpillars of the painted lady butterfly among 

 the eggs (I have even seen them in nests before any 

 eggs had been laid) and, more often, placed upon 

 the broad rim of the saucer-shaped structure. Some- 

 times they are sluggishly alive, sometimes they are 

 evidently dead, and sometimes they seem verily to 

 be petrified. 



Mr. G. F. Hill, in an interesting observation upon 

 the subject, gathered when with the Barclay 

 Expedition of 1911-12, says that he found about 

 one dozen living larvae of a Spilosoma moth in 

 a nest of a Bell-Bird containing two eggs, in the 

 Northern Territory. He notes that it is not uncom- 

 mon to find the larvae of Spilosoma obliqua in Bell- 

 Birds' nests in Victoria, but considers it somewhat 

 remarkable to find larvae of a very closely allied 

 species in the nests of Northern Territory birds. 



But the whole practice is remarkable ; so much so 

 that, in the absence of any definite evidence to indi- 

 cate that all these hairy caterpillars are stocked for 

 food, the purpose of the custom still remains a 

 puzzle to ornithologists. 



And now, all ye who respect a highly capable and 

 dainty bird, consider with some closeness the Bell- 

 Bird's kin-spirit of the crest. 



It is not because of any particular rarity that the 

 Crested Tit has not been generally studied. Broadly 

 speaking, the distribution of the group is somewhat 

 akin to that of the three species of Whip-Bird. The 

 most numerous is the yellow-breasted species (Fal- 

 cunculus frontatus) of Queensland, New South 

 Wales, Victoria and South Australia; a white- 



