THE AUSTRALIAN BELL-BIRD. 
75 
troublesome and annoying, awakening as they do the suspi- 
cions of other animals of which you are in pursuit/^ The 
note of another species of Myzantlia (the If. melanojjhrys) 
has acquired for it the name of the Bell-bird; companies 
of from ten to forty and even more giving utterance to a 
peculiar garrulous note, which has been justly compared to 
the sound of distant sheep-bells, and which, when poured 
forth by a hundred throats from various parts of the forest, 
has a most singular effect.^^ 
The Melijjhaga Aiistfalaslana is a species found abundantly 
among the almost impenetrable forests which cover great 
portions of Van Diemen^s Land. Mr. Gould refers to the 
pleasure experienced by the traveller in listening to the loud 
shrill liquid notes poured forth by numbers of this species, 
and which break the extreme silence of the solitudes. It 
would appear to derive its chief supply of food from the 
thick beds of JEpacris impressa, a shrub with red and white 
heath-like flowers, in the blossoms of which it finds abun- 
dance of food ; so intently is it sometimes engaged in its 
search after this, that the ornithologist of Australia has been 
able to get so near it as to observe its actions without disturb- 
ing it. The bird then clings to the stems in every possible 
attitude, inserting its long brush-like tongue into every flower 
