BELL'BIRD'. The English name of various tropical birds whose voices suggest the tones of a bell ; specifically, a chatterer (family Cotingi (he), called campanero by Spanish-speaking peo ple of the Lower Amazon and the Guianas, where it lives, and Chasmorhynchus ni•eus by orni thologists. It resembles the waxwings (Ampe lida-) in form, but is pure white, and feeds mainly upon forest fruits gathered mostly in the high tree-tops, where small flocks move about all day, but are by no means common; and at mid day, when most other birds of the forest are silent, its note rings out "loud and clear like the sound of a bell. . . You hear his toll. and then a pause for a minute, then another toll, and then a pause again, and then another' toll, and so on." So Waterton described it : others have likened the sound to blows upon an anvil, hut all agree that it can be heard at an immense dis tance. and is very striking. Another remarkable feature of this bird and its relatives, several of which live in South and Central America, and have more or less bell-like voices, are the fleshy appendages (caruncles) about the face, espe cially conspicuous in the present species. From its forehead depends a slender caruncle (sec illustration), jet black hut dotted all over with starlike tufts of feathers. It was long believed that this caruncle was concerned in the singu lar voice of the bird, because Charles Waterton (Wanderings in South .4 nicrica, London, 1825) asserted that it could be inflated from the palate, and would stand erect like a rigid spire above the beak to the height of 3 inches. This seemed plausible, but has been proved erroneous by ob servation upon birds kept in captivity, particu larly about 1891 by J. J. Quelch, a naturalist of Georgetown, British Guiana.
"The caruncle," he says (The Field, London, November 26, 1892), "is never carried upright. The erect position, in fact, is an impossible one, since the organ is made up of very fine elastic tissue, which causes it to depend lower and lower over one side of the beak during extension. When the bird is about to utter its characteris tic notes, it slowly becomes elongated, at times as much as 5 inches. At the conclusion of the note the organ may remain extended until the next note, or may be partially retracted; but when a long interval takes place the structuTe is always allowed to shrink up to about half an inch or an inch in length, and it then hangs against the beak. During extension the caruncle is never inflated with air. but. is always in a state of collapse." Quelch then adds a descrip tion of the curious behavior of the bird in utter ing its ringing notes. which follow great draughts of air into its lungs. A related spe cies of Costa Rica (Chasmorhynchus tricarun culata) has "three enormous band-like caruncles on the forehead where it joins the bill, and one on each side at the corner of the mouth." A Brazilian species (C'Iu(tsmorlynchns is white, with large spaces of naked skin about the eyes, beak, and throat, colored green. In Australia, one of the honey-suckers (Meliphagi dx) is called bellbird—a small greenish-yellow forest bird (Manorhiaa melanophoys), whose ching-ehing from the tea-tree 'scrub' is welcomed as an assurance that water is near. In New Zealand another honey-sucker (Anthorius aura), now nearly extinct, is given the name for a similar reason; it is remarkable for deco rating its thicket-hidden nest with the most gaudy feathers it can find.