Smith. — On the Birds of Lake Brunncr District. 215 



Miro albifrons (South Island Eobin), 



The wood -robin is an almost constant attendant when 

 roaming in the bush or about the tents. Its habits are in 

 some respects similar to the yellow-breasted tit (Myiomoira 

 onacroccphala) — jealously chasing each other round the tents, 

 and disputing their rights to crumbs of bread or other food 

 thrown to them. When seated outside the tent they will 

 frequently settle on the boots, darting off to pick up crumbs, 

 returning again and again, and becoming very familiar. They 

 are encouraged and protected by the gold-diggers, who allow 

 them to enter their tents and huts and to hop on the table to 

 share their own meals. The song of the wood-robin in the 

 lonely bush is in all seasons enjoyable. It is the first astir 

 with the earliest streak of dawn, and, with the fantails, is the 

 last to retire in the evening, when the gloomy twilight silently 

 closes over the bush. 



Halcyon vagans (Kingfisher) . 



The kingfisher is abundant about the lake, frequenting the 

 mouths of the streams flowing slowly into it. The food-supply 

 is enormous, as the shallow edges of the streams teem with the 

 small bull-trout. 



In autumn, when the grayling ascends the Arnold Eiver, 

 large numbers of kingfishers withdraw from the lake and 

 subsist on the smaller-sized fish of this beautiful and useful 

 species. When the colder months set in many descend the 

 Arnold to the more open and sunny flats on the Grey Eiver, 

 subsisting on insects and small bull-trout "or bullys " until 

 the arrival of the whitebait. 



In the Grey during the whitebait season (September and 

 October) the birds are very numerous, and can be seen 

 sunning themselves on dead trees or old naked stumps all 

 along the lower Grey Valley. 



Myiomoira viacroceplmla (Yellow-breasted Tit). 



Among the undergi'owth of the bush the sprightly yellow- 

 breasted tits flit gracefully about, and sportingly chase each 

 other through the branches, gently fluttering their wings, 

 erecting their crests, and uttering a suppressed twitter as they 

 sit eyeing each other on the boughs or clinging to the stems 

 of the trees, and exhibiting the peculiar jealousy of the 

 wood-robin about the tents. They are plentiful in the 

 district, and more wary than many other species. In the 

 bush near old settled districts on the west coast they are 

 still abundant. Their food, which consists of worms, larvae, 

 chrysalides, and insects, is plentiful in all seasons in the 

 bush. 



