WOOD AND WASTE 159 



digging his enemy in the ribs. During 

 December we got a Tui's nest in a 

 small spinney near the Waikahau river, 

 and from above, off the hill's steep slopes, 

 we could both see and hear the bird 

 singing on her eggs. 



Never before had I known any species 

 sing on the nest, and this Tui's "0-coc-coc- 

 coc-coc-coc," each syllable rapidly enunci- 

 ated, produced a distant and peculiar note, 

 impossible to forget or confuse with any 

 other. When her mate was expected — 

 presumably she w^as the hen — the bird 

 seemed to raise herself on the nest and 

 stretch forth her neck as if in expectation 

 of food. We were close to her, yet she 

 sang as if her song could have no ending, 

 as if the world was too full of the ecstasy 

 of life for wrong and rapine to exist. The 

 sun was shining above the flowing river, 

 the leaves green, of every shape and shade, 

 her great love had cast out fear. Much 

 of the Tui's singing we cannot hear, the 

 notes too high, I suppose, for our human 

 ears, for 1 have often watched the bird's 



