Andersen. — New Zealand Bird-song. 423 



the evening, at intervals of perhaps half a minute, and for five or more 

 minutes at a time. As twilight deepened a new theme was taken up : the 

 tree-top sentinel disappeared, and from the dark bush came the quickly 

 uttered notes shown in (5). These would be continued, with the slight 

 variations shown occurring now and again, for two and three minutes with- 

 out pause or cessation ; and when they ceased no other note was heard, 

 the next cry coming from the now stirring morepork : his cry consisted of 

 two muffled but clear notes, the second a semitone lower than the first. 



I heard more of the whirring flight of the tui {Prosthemadera novcB- 

 zealandice) than of his song, the commonest call I heard during the week 

 being a repetition of a single note, from four to eight times, the most 

 frequent number being five, as shown in (1) following : 



,, . SfCL ^, 



Si'a. 



(1) r ^ r * -^ - — ■ f.-; >^ L ' ■ (3) 



- Jjl' ITrf 



zsx 



hree A/ctu^' hruri: 'Hrurr T 



It was especially noticeable of the pitch of this note that it never varied : 

 every time I tried it it was h. Fenwick, travelling in the southern part of 

 this island, recorded the note as /, and said that it varied in different locali- 

 ties. The five notes were generally, though not always, followed by the 

 three gutturals hree, hraw, hrurr. These gutturals have no definitive pitch ; 

 each has its distinct vowel sound, however, and they can be imitated by 

 breathing the words rather than articulating them ; the r carries the Ger- 

 man sound, produced by slight vibration of the uvula. The five notes are 

 ventriloquous — that is, they appear to come from a distance away from the 

 bird ; and I, having been told the notes were those of a bell-bird, thought 

 the tui I was w^atching answered them with the gutturals : I soon saw, 

 however, that the same bird produced both. The notes have a clear, mellow 

 tone, and when uttering them the bird sits motionless, with outstretched 

 neck, in some high tree — usually, when I saw him, in a totara or black-pine. 

 The last of the gutturals, hrurr, was at times used as the initial for the slur 

 shown in (2). This high slurred note was very sweet and plaintive — one 

 of the sweetest of all I heard. I heard these calls of the tui much more 

 often than his song. This song (3) is an instance of seeming imitation : 

 the theme is the same as in the song of the bell-bird, the difference being 

 in the intervals and the tempo. The initial note varied almost to the same 

 degree as that of the bell-bird. The two distinctive final notes of the latter, 

 however, I did not hear imitated. In the tui song the fourth and sixth 

 notes, both a, were long-drawn and most melodious. I heard no other notes 

 from the tui : I came too late in the season to hear him at his best. 



The black fantail (tiwakawaka — Rhipidura fuliginosa) had a slurred 

 note that was similar to the slur of the tui, but was a sixth higher. 



I heard the fuller song of this bird only once. It 

 alit on the rough bark of a black-pine only a yard 

 " '" from me, and twittered a pleasant little song, of 



limited range, however, and little variation. I did 

 not wish to interrupt it, as it was the first time of 

 hearing it, so did not take the pitch ; and, unfor- 

 tunately, I did not hear the song a second time. It hovered about the 

 opening-note, never more than a tone (more often a semitone) above or 

 below, being, indeed, hardly more than a twitter. 



