422 



Transactions. 



Art. XLIII. — yew Zealand Bird-song. 

 By Johannes C. Andersen. 



[Bead before the Philosophical Institute oj Canterhury, ith Novemher, 1908.] 



I SPENT a week in December of last year in the neighbourhood of a clump 

 of thirty or forty acres of native bush near Stony Bay, Little Akaroa ; 

 and as this was my first time of being for any length of time near the 

 bush, I occupied myself in recording the notes of such birds as happened to 

 be there. 



The most elusive notes I found to be those of the bell-bird (korimako 

 • — Anthornis melanura). I could catch and fix individual notes, but it was 

 some days before I could be sure of their sequence. The reason will be 

 seen on referring to the records following : — 



&VO. 



> 



&va.. 



(J) 



-¥ M^ 



<:» (2) 



^ rV^JJ^ 



8i/a . 



&ia 



t-3) 



(6) 



iv^ . 



(t) 



f 7 f 7 [T'-T r^^ 



or 0) 



^^ 



^^^ 



[ • V k *"' i < I ' — V- 



r^j V \ / i - i *. i i> 



and so on. The pitch of the initial note of the phrases (1) and (2) varied 

 from d to c, as shown in (3). The consequence was that on checking the 

 notes taken one day with notes taken the next I found they differed, often 

 to a wide degree. I was not able to discover if the variation in pitch was 

 due to the song being sung by different birds, or if one bird was able to 

 vary it as it pleased. The most usual phrase was (1) : the notes follow one 

 another very quickly, the two concluding the phrase being most distinctive 

 and characteristic. A variation where these two notes are discarded is 

 shown in (2). Here the whole phrase is lengthened, and two notes of differ- 

 ent pitch introduced — the two last, which are sustained longer than those 

 preceding. These concluding notes are very pleasing, the last especially 

 being deep, full, and melodious. I only heard this variation as a continu- 

 ation of (1), and then only when the two distinctive notes were discarded. 

 The difference between the day-song and the even-song was very marked : 

 in the latter the notes were sung more deliberately, and, whilst the general 

 theme of the day-song was followed, the intervals were slightly different. 

 The parallel of the more usual day-song was also the more usual even- 

 song (4) : it will be seen that a pause approximately twice the length of the 

 note was made after each note, and the distinctive note uttered only once, 

 the interval between the acciciatura and the main note being also less. The 

 variation of the even-song (5) ended on the same note as the variation of 

 the day-song, I more than once saw a bell-bird on the top of a dead tree 

 at the edge of the bush repeating one or other of the phrases (4) and (5) in 



