Official Organ of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union. 



Bir«as of A feather.' 



Vol. XL] isx JULY, 191 1. [Part i. 



Bush-Birds of New Zealand. 



By J. C. M'Lean, M.B.O.U., Gi^bornk, N.Z. 



Part L 



Introduction. 

 As must l)c well known to readers of The Hniii, the bush of New 

 Zealand, as far as the number of its species of birds is con- 

 cerned, cannot possibly compare with that of Australia ; still, 

 what few birds exist are interesting from many standpoints. 

 There were only about twenty species of strictly arboreal habits 

 to be found in the North Island, and, although once common, 

 many of them are now rare — one or two possibly extinct. 



Some years ago (1892), when the second edition of the late 

 Sir Walter Buller's " History of the Birds of New Zealand " had 

 appeared, attention was drawn in a short article in The Ibis to 

 the fact that two of the species * mentioned in that work as 

 almost extinct were at that time not uncommon in one part of 

 the North Island. Since then the writer has had many oppor- 

 tunities of making the acquaintance of our rarer birds ; and an 

 article was lately published in The Ibis based upon some notes 

 made in the winter and spring of igo6.t Further notes have 

 since been gathered in the same locality ; and, with a view of 

 showing the ]wsition, at this day, of the bush-birds of this part 

 of New Zealand, the present article has been written. The im- 

 pression has obtained among ornithologists that our bush-birds 

 are i)i exivemis : but this, I think, is hardly borne out by the 

 facts, and, as I wish to show, many, although retreating before 

 the advance of axe and forest fire, are still to be met with, in some 

 numbers, in much of our higher bush country. 



Maunga-Haumia,| upon whose north-eastern and southern spurs 

 these notes were gathered, is, with its white southern face — caused 



* Miro australis and Clitonyx albicapilla. 



^ Ibis (1907), p. 519, "Field Notes on Some of the Bush-Birds of New 

 Zealand," by J. C. M'Lean, M.B.O.U. ; with an Appendi.x on the Species of 

 the Genus Pseudogerygone, by W. R. Ogilvie-Grant. 



X Maunga-Haumia. Maunga means a hill. H aimiia-tiki-tiki was, in 

 native lore, a deity or lord of the fern root, as also of all growing vegetable 

 food. Hence, perhaps, the Maori, observing this prominent feature, called 

 it " The Mountain of Haumia." 



