392 



Transactions. 



high e, which is touched much more Ughtly than the others. The whole 

 phrase took Httle over a second in utterance, and was very clear and bright. 

 Occasionally a light note or two preceded the phrase, as in (14) ; these light 

 notes appeared to take the place of the notes producing the tm of (7). A 

 bird would often sit in a tree repeating a single note, tiv, at approxi- 

 mate intervals of 3 seconds. It was a short, sharp, clear note — a hiccuped 

 drop of song that one could imagine as faUing from the bird wath a bell-like 

 pat into some resonant receptacle : the bird ejected the note almost as one 

 would spit a hair from the lips. I saw one bird in a shrub of Pseudopanax, 

 15 ft. distant, uttering the note. The bill was opened fairly wide, the throat 

 swelled quickly and contracted, once to each note ; the phrase (13) some- 

 times followed. In the shrub there seemed to be an answer to the tiu — a 

 plaintive slurred a to a flat (16). Only one bird was seen, however, so it 

 may hate been indulging in soliloquy. In the variant (17) there were two 

 exceedingly highly pitched notes, as in (11) ; in (17a) the natural g was 

 dropped an octave. The quality of the notes appeared to vary the pitch, 

 those of different pitch being susceptible of different- vocalizations. The 



OfJ 



(/s)»;'2 {/e)«-,/z OrJ "-'-'z 





^ ^ 



^£^4=% 



" ^rM 



J'<^1 



hit tiu i e fia 

 2S-t2-/Z 



jjj^rjr^ .^^^P ^^ 



^^=^ 



(20'J 30/t . 



Ifu fu-nj-tatu 



(zo?)i 



e aitf /i'o. 

 (ZO") llt7-IZ 





■ivj.jv^j 



///»( M//>if //a/rit Hul- frrr aSrr fyirti fyunkfjtunk fyun/i furr "^ 

 (2/) 2e IT 'i , 8»«» 



«-• ■- .-^ (2/")' 



opening varied — sometimes tiu as in (7), sometimes as in (14), or (13), 

 or (17). Once two clear sharp notes (18) preceded the tiu. The notes 

 of (19) have the sound of tu (the u as in "but"), and the ordinary song was 

 occasionally preceded by tu, or tu tu, or tu tu tu. 



A variant of (3) was heard in (20). This theme was not always sung in 

 full- — often only the first two notes, and often the first five; if only the 

 first two, the second note was lengthened to a crotchet. On one occasion, 

 being directly below the bird when the two notes were sung, I repeatedly 

 heard the faint light notes of (20a) following the bell notes ; they were very 

 light and softly uttered, through a restricted aperture. Whilst the opening 

 of (20b) was the same, the notes were entirely different in quality. They 

 were most distinctly vocalized tlinh, tlunk, tlunk, tlur, without breathing 

 on the terminal of the h ; the aperture evidently varied with each note of 

 different pitch. When the vowel or open part of the note sounded — that 

 is, I take it, when the aperture had been formed — ^there was a distinct clear 

 bell note, the bell giving the pitch ; the consonantal sounds were evidently, 

 so to speak, the gearing-up and slackening of the vocal organs for the emis- 

 sion of the bell note. In the majority of instances the first two notes only 

 were sung ; often the first four ; sometimes, again, the fifth followed — a 

 most entrancing vibrating bell note on g flat, like a bell struck four or five 



