l82 M'Lean, Bush-Birds of New Zealand. [isf'jan. 



the pine-bushes of the valleys in the vicinity. These lighter 

 patches are fast melting into the surrounding grass country, and in 

 a very short time the Bell-Bird, too, will have gone from those 

 parts. However, it has been noted in the main forest of this 

 district in various places, and no doubt will last as long as that 

 remains ; but it is a pity that our North Island birds do not (as 

 their South Island friends are stated to have done) learn to move 

 about a little more, and so, like the Tui, adapt themselves to the 

 changing conditions which seem to threaten their existence. 



Prosthemadera novae-zealandiae — Tui, or Parson-Bird. 



Buller, " Birds of New Zealand " (2nd edition), vol. i., p. 94. 



It was fully expected that the Tui would be found quite plentiful 

 in this virgin bush of which I write ; but it was soon discovered 

 that here, in autumn, winter, and spring, at any rate, it was by 

 no means the common bird that one associates with the New 

 Zealand forest. Not that it was rare, but elsewhere it has often 

 been seen in greater numbers. Neither on the north in 1906, nor 

 on the south in the following year, did it frequent the main bush 

 in any numbers, but was always more plentiful about its outskirts 

 and in the second-growth. In the spring they have been seen 

 in some numbers among the scattered bushes of lower open 

 country, wherever the fuchsia or the kowhai flowers, and there 

 some remain to nest, finding much fruit upon the fuchsia and 

 other trees in summer, and later on a harvest in the autumn for 

 all in the berries of the white pine {Podocarpns dacrydioides) and 

 matai (P. spicata) — two pines which are rare in the Maunga- 

 Haumia bush. In this bush itself the Tuis fed in winter upon 

 such berries as those of coprosma, supplejack, and five-finger, 

 besides obtaining some insect food ; but in spring it was noticed 

 that, though some remained among the birch and in the damper 

 gullies where the fuchsia flowered, many moved out more or less 

 to the edges, to the second-growth, and to the more open country 

 as noted above. It was thought that this was the usual pro- 

 cedure, and that the heavier bush was resorted to chiefly in winter, 

 but not by all. Perhaps there was a scarcity of flowering trees 

 suited to its taste ; but the Bell-Bird evidently found sufficient, 

 for it was, in the writer's estimate, quite as strong numerically 

 as the Tui, and even more so in the spring. However, this habit of 

 moving is apparently all to the advantage of the latter bird, for it 

 quite holds its own in the district. 



In the lower end of the slip valley, which was almost daily 

 traversed in 1907, the Tui was fairly plentiful. There on the 

 older country much second-growth existed, while odd patches of 

 a few acres of the original bush had been thoughtfully reserved 

 in several parts. Many wintered in the second-growth, where, 

 besides insect food, they fed upon the orange berries of the poro- 

 poro {Solaniim aviculare) and the fleshy seed-envelopes of the 

 black vine {Muehhnheckia adpressa), besides making periodical 

 visits during the day to the neighbouring bush in search of the 



