152 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



The very same conditions prevailed in Dunedin and its 

 neighbourhood for many years after the founding of the 

 settlement, but the whole aspect of the scene is now 

 changed. The native birds with few exceptions have 

 retired before the settlers and the new conditions which 

 have been created, and we have now to go some distance 

 afield to meet familiarly with these friends of our early 

 colonial days. 



As I write I hear the liquid call of a bell-bird, which 

 loves to visit a Japanese Quince now in full flower under 

 the study windows ; but this solitary musician, and an 

 occasional torn-tit or so, are the only native birds which 

 have been seen in the garden for a long time past. Even 

 the usually abundant wax-eyes seem to have sought fresh 

 fields and pastures green. Now and again a tui is seen or 

 heard in the Town Belt, but other species have been 

 extremely rare or altogether absent. Of the introduced 

 birds, the thrushes and blackbirds, starlings, and the 

 ubiquitous sparrows, have been very much in evidence. 

 But even the hedge sparrows have been rarer than usual, 

 and the skylarks have seldom delighted us with their 

 matin songs. The goldfinches, too, seem to have left us 

 for a time. These absences may, of course, be only from 

 Dunedin and its suburban gardens. The tuis and other 

 native species may be common enough at present in the 

 bush districts, and the introduced birds may be keeping 

 about the newly-ploughed ground in the farming districts, 

 but they are certainly away from this neighbourhood. 



When I first came to Dunedin, in 1871, there were a few 

 introduced birds to be found here in the wild state, which 

 have since then totally disappeared ; and in subsequent 

 years others were liberated, which either disappeared at 

 once or have since been lost sight of. A few of these cases 

 are of special interest. 



Thus, Indian mynhas * used to live about Bell Hill, nest- 

 ing on Dr Hocken's and other houses in that neighbour- 

 hood, and also on the First Church steeple after it was 



* Acridothetes tristis. 



