2 M'Lean, Bush-Birds of New Zealand. [ist^'july 



by a land-slip some thirty odd years ago— a well-known landmark 

 of the East Coast district. The range, rising to a height of 3,979 

 feet, is situated some 40 to 50 miles N.N.W. of Poverty Bay, and 

 in the centre of that large extension of the North Island of New 

 Zealand which ends in East Cape. Its bush could, until the 

 past year or so, be included in possibly the largest area of un- 

 touched forest remaining to the Dominion. It still has some 

 slight connection with that to the north and west, but probably 

 not for long. Year by year large blocks are being felled and 

 burnt upon its slopes and spurs, and with the destruction of the 

 bush most of its bird-hfe— in fact, all its life— must disappear. 



The writer spent the winter of 1906 on the north-eastern spurs, 

 amid what was then virgin bush, and in the daily walks entailed 

 in supervising the felling of part of some 3,000 acres had excellent 

 opportunities of observing its birds. Another 2.000 acres were 

 felled in the same locality during the winter of 1907, when the 

 writer was superintending a block of 1,000 acres on the southern 

 spurs — this latter in somewhat higher country, running up to about 

 3,500 feet. Above this the country is too poor and rough to 

 warrant further operations for the present, and it is to be hoped 

 will remain for many years a sanctuary for some of those rarer 

 birds I had the pleasure of meeting there. 



In 1906 the first camp was pitched — on 19th April — right on 

 top of the birch ridge, at an elevation of about 3,000 feet. On 

 top of this ridge the bush consisted of magnificent birch {Notofagus 

 fuscus) — in reality a beech — with many other species of trees and 

 shrubs interspersed, chief among which was the spreading tawari 

 [Ixerha brexioides), forming more than half the vegetation, and 

 whose seeds afforded much food, during early winter, for Parrakeets 

 and Parrots. With the exception of a tall, tussocky grass, there 

 was but little undergrowth among the birch ; but down the sides 

 of the ridge scrub became more plentiful wherever the bush 

 changed to a more mixed class of tawa [Beilschmiedia tawa) — the 

 fruit of which is the favourite autumn food of the Pigeon — hinau, 

 miro, and other trees, and was thicker in the gullies, which, with 

 moss-festconed white-wood {Mtiicytus raniiflorns), made a happy 

 hunting-ground for our smallest bird, the Rifleman. 



To the south-west, between this ridge and the main range, lay 

 an undulating valley, of poorer soil, where much more open- 

 bottomed bush prevailed, consisting of tawhera [Weinmannia 

 silvicola) and manuka {Leptospermum ericoides), about 40 to 50 

 feet high, with hardly any undergrowth, but showing here and 

 there patches of a peculiar grass-tree {Dracophyllum nrvillcannm) 

 — nei-nei of the Maories — averaging about 8 feet in height, and 

 which grew so thickly as to almost exclude other species. This 

 valley, intersected by the Mangamaia * and its numerous branches, 

 was much frequented by the Whitehead, Bell-Bird, and Blue- 

 wattled Crow ; and here — more particularly in the nei-nei and 



* " Resting-place," as applied to a grave. 



