Andersen. — New Zealand Bird-song. 525 



on the 3rd November, 1915 : their pitch was G A, G A, on the 1st December. 

 The notes are more deliberate than those of (14). They are at times whistled 

 as the prelude of the tweeting song, and may themselves be preceded by 

 tweet-tweet, tweet-a-tweet : they are, however, more often whistled alone. 

 On the 1st December the tweet-a-tweet was a fifth lower in pitch than the 

 lower note of the pair. No notes were heard in February, and occasional 

 notes only in March ; but through the rest of the year 1916 these whistling 

 notes were heard more or less every day. They are monotonously regular, 

 their chief variation being in pitch and interval. On the 10th April, 1916, 

 they were B C, B C, and on the 12th the B was slightly raised — less than 

 a semitone. On the 27th April the interval was very small, as in (15b), and 

 probably the interval was even less ; the opening C was little more than 

 half-flat. In singing this theme the whole, including the two introductory 

 vocalized notes, was repeated four times or more. Usually the accent is 

 decidedly on the first note of the pair ; at times the accent is absent, and 

 the secpience of the notes of the pair can be gathered only from the opening 

 or close of the theme ; at times the accent is on the upper note, when the 

 interval, instead of sounding an upward one, sounds downwards, as in (18). 

 On this occasion (12th September, 1916) the bird sat quietly on a bough 

 whilst singing these notes, variously vocalized as indicated, following them 

 with a faint tweeting. Another, singing the common high whistle, also 

 falling instead of rising, sat on the bough with beak wide open, slightly closing 

 it at each drop of the sound. It was never still whilst singing, facing first 

 in one direction, then flitting round and facing in another. On the 29th 

 August, 1916, the common upward whistling notes, half - converted to 

 tweeting, were sung by a bird whilst flying with another in playful evolutions. 

 On the 21st May, 1916, a sunny, dewy morning, with thrushes singing 

 freely, the song (16) was heard, sung by a black fantail. Two birds were 

 together, and the song, with its tweety introduction followed by whistled 

 triplets, was very characteristic and charming. It is usually the pied birds 

 that are observed singing ; but as the number of these is, in this district, 

 much greater than the number of black birds, no inference may be drawn 

 from this fact. The notes of (11a) are probably call-notes. They were 

 uttered, some five notes in two seconds" by a pied bird, another answering, 

 and the two gradually approaching. The notes differ in vocalization only 

 from those of (11) (Trans., vol. 45), being vocalized chit, chit, instead of 

 ti, ti, the vowel sound being the same. The triplets of (17) were very quickly 

 sung, on the 24th August, 1916, the nine notes being uttered in little over 

 a second, and the whole repeated several times. The effect of these triplets, 

 with their curious vocalization tweedle-a, was quite different from the vocal- 

 ized triplets of (14), or the whistled triplets of (13) and (16). The notes 

 of (19) may perhaps be considered a variation of the common whistling 

 song : it is in pairs ; the high notes are preceded by a vocalized pair tweet-a 

 or tweet-tweet ; but the high notes are here also vocalized rather than whistled, 

 and the song is broken into short repeated phrases. When not otherwise 

 specified, these variations were noted in the Botanical Gardens, Wellington. 



The Grey Warbler. 



The more I hear of the warbler the higher is my estimation of its gentle 

 song. The characteristic nature of the song, rising or falling triplets, soon 

 becomes familiar, and may be heard almost every day in the environs of 

 Wellington. The whole of the variations noted below were heard in the 



