Andersen. — New Zcola/ul Bird-!<ong. 



667 



exceedingly voluble, ;uid I often almost anathematized the song that 

 otherwise I so like to hear : it was out of place in the native bush ; the 

 thrush was an interloper. On this evening all was quiet at 8 o'clock, 

 but at 8.15 a tui broke into the following pretty melody : — 



^a,.. 



The first two notes were loud and slurred ; the following part was the 

 bubbling song, its final a flat being drawn out, softening away into silence. 

 A tui answered with (14:«), omitting the aurr aurr, and dwelling longer on 

 the final d ; another answered with kree hraw krurr, whilst from a fourth 

 came the full song of (12). That was the last sound of bird-song : the 

 fantail, said to be the last bird heard in the evening, had ceased long 

 smce. Moths had begun fluttering in the deepenmg twilight, and low in 

 the grass beetles kept up a most audible underhmn on / (bass), some flying 

 high and occasionally striking the leaves of the trees with a loud tap. A 

 few drops of rain were falling, but, few as they were, their beating on the 

 thousands of leaves emitted a faint murmur as of wind ; but the leaves 

 were quite miruffled ; there was no wind whatever. At 8.35 came the first 

 cry of the ruru ; and at 8.40 a weka prophesied rain, which came heavily 

 before morning. 



On the 27th December I noted a variation of the song of the yellow- 

 breasted tit : — 



Sj 



and one on the 25th : — 



z^a.. 



On the last day of 1909 I heard a new call. The note was much louder 

 and shriller than any I had heard before, and I at once set ofi in the 

 direction of the call, so as, if possible, to catch a glimpse of the new-comer. 

 I located it high in a totara, and heard the call several times before I actually 

 saw the bird. I at once concluded it was a cuckoo, a conclusion confirmed 

 by subsequent correspondence with Dr. Fulton, of Dunedin, to whom I 

 sent a description of the bird and its call. The bird appeared dark grey, 

 long and thin, with long pointed beak, and when on the wing it looked like 

 a flying cross with depressed arms. Once, as the bird left the high branches 

 of a totara, its tail, which seemed about a foot long, was spread fanwise 

 for a few moments. It was a long-tailed cuckoo {Urodijnamis taitensis — 

 koekoea), and my inabihty to distinguish its colour-marks was due to the 



