530 



Transactions. 



note that there is an increase in the interval between the notes of the slurs 

 as the season advances : such increase of interval does take place in the 

 well-known cry of the European cuckoo. I did. not hear it in the Botanical 

 Gardens until the 17th October, a warm day following cloudy and rainy 

 weather. On the 19th a new element was introduced into the song. In 

 the pauses between the down slurs an indefinite number of triplets, one, 

 two, or three, were sung very softly, vocalized as in (7). 



The Blight-bird (Silver-eye). 



On the 21st April, 1915, I was seated indoors near an open window, 

 at twenty minutes past 9 in the evening, when I heard a twittering, almost 

 singing, that lasted one or two minutes. I was in Armagh Street, Christ- 

 church, near the old Provincial Government Buildings, and thought the 

 birds were in the shrubberies opposite, and went out to investigate ; but 

 the sound then seemed in the air, and passed away, apparently to the 

 south-east. It sounded like scores of birds, all twittering the two notes 

 of (a) in (5), or (b), or (c), or (a) and (6) combined, now one, now the other 



(s) 



L 



28w- 

 (a.) 



a j 



(cj 



-*—<i 



V-V 



fczt 



-¥- 



^^ 



& 



a 



ZBi 



m 



g.i.£l.fl 



(e): 



± 



m 



±± 



■ — a medley — individuals could not be distinguished. The interval of the 

 slur was hardly a semitone. The night was chilly, dark, and overcast, and 

 perfectly still — no breath of wind. The note had the characteristic plain- 

 tive sound of that of the blight-bird ; and I remembered Mr. J. Hard- 

 castle, of Timaru, saying that he had one night heard what he thought 

 to be the twittering of small birds passing overhead, and the twittering was 

 as the cry of the blight-bird. On the 22nd May, 1916, (6) was noted in 

 the Botanical Gardens — a quick, soft-toned whistle, followed after a pause 

 by the usual slurred cry : the part to the double bar occupied about a 

 second and a half. 



The Morepork. 

 The cry commonly heard in Crieff Street is as in (9) 



) 3-v-a. 





Art. LI.- -The Blepharoceridae (Diptera) of New Zealand (in Part a 

 Translation of the Work of Professor Mario Bezzi). 



By David Miller. 



[Read before the Philosophical Institute of Canterbury, 6th December, 1916.1 



(The manuscript of this article has been placed in the library of the 

 New Zealand Institute.) 



