AND OTHER BIRDS 147 



passed between the eager pair. Then again 

 their interrupted flight was resumed, the male 

 rising fii'st, the hen for a moment lingering and 

 then appearing with a twig which she carried 

 up to an old sloping orchid-hung rimu. There 

 it was deposited, and she followed in the wake 

 of the male. That stick was no more intended 

 for use than the pine was intended for a nesting 

 tree ; at the dictate of some prompting, — perhaps 

 as a reply, it had been gathered. The one bird 

 had suggested and the other understood. 



I feel sure myself, though this lamentably 

 inadequate description, I know, can hardly 

 picture the little flashlight scene to the reader, 

 that thoughts of nesting had in that moment 

 passed between the pair ; that even as I watched, 

 and wonderful it seemed to me, a new thought 

 had been born to them and awoke to life. I 

 had witnessed the birth, and knew that it 

 quickened in warmth of spring, fresh woods, 

 and fragrance of wet leaves. I was the more 

 assured of this perhaps, from observation, some 

 weeks previously, of a mated pair of Black and 

 Pied Fantail. They, too, seemed to be able to 

 confer without note or call, and would ever and 

 anon, ceasing their hunt for flies in the vicinity, 

 join forces and whirl aloft in close companion- 

 ship, fluttering, like Humming Birds are repre- 

 sented to do before a tropical bloom, or as the 

 Tui before a manuka bush when collecting 

 twiggy branchlets for his nest. There, before the 

 selected spot, — later we got the nest, but pulled 

 and torn — they would for long flutter, as if in 

 examination of the basis of their future home. 



That we can still watch the Bell-bird's lively 

 habits of flight, still listen to its song, still 



