328 OUR SEARCH FOR A WILDERNESS. 



the berries. Then when the bird dropped exhausted to a 

 branch below, it would swallow what it had gathered. 



After shooting the Toucans I leaned my gun against a 

 patch of black moss on a tree trunk. To ray astonishment 

 the moss whirled outward and back, and then I saw it was a 

 host of caterpillars crowded as densely as they could be in 

 a patch three feet high and forming a semicircle about the 

 six-inch trunk. They were covered with black, branched, 

 stinging hairs, with two longer tufted ones on the segments 

 near the head. As Francis said, " Um wurrum's hairs bite 

 hard!" 



1 began experimenting with their reaction motions. I 

 found that any ssi sound or hiss, the snapping of lingers, 

 whistling, hand clapping, or pounding on the metal or wood 

 of my gun, caused absolutely no response on the part of the 

 caterpillars. No matter how close to the creatures or how 

 loud or sudden was the sound, unless they were touched they 

 did not move. On the contrary, any utterance of such sounds 

 as his! bow! bing! buzz! even when so low as hardly to rise 

 above a whisper, caused every caterpillar of the many hun- 

 dreds to react as one. The head with the long tufted appen- 

 dage was jerked quickly backward, then down, and on the 

 edges of the mass from side to side. Those in the centre, 

 because of their position, had only the up and down flick. 

 The eft'ect as a whole was indescribable. An inconspicuous 

 growth of moss was transformed like a flash into a seething, 

 rearing mass of waving caterpillars. A suggestion, altogether 

 'theoretical, is that the reaction to the buzzy sounds may 

 hint that the chief danger feared by these caterpillars is 

 the fatal buzz of the wings of the ichneumon flv. 



This evening we added baboon and bill-bird to our veni- 

 son, and were surprised to find the former tender and by no 

 means devoid of taste. The Toucans were tough, but more 

 than one of us came back for a second helping of " howler " 



