162 A NEW ZEALAND NATURALIST'S CALENDAR. 



someone to give the branch a smart tap with a stick, when 

 scores of the little insects will drop on to the paper. I 

 have gathered eight species of beetles on these flowers, 

 and have also noticed several species of native flies, 

 large and small. In Otago Central I have met with 

 staminate forms of Rubus tending to become double : 

 I do not know whether the form is common. Tutii, 

 manuka, and ngaio in flower are occasionally to be met 

 with this month. 



The present season (1901) is late owing to the severity of 

 the winter, so that many deciduous-leaved plants which 

 are usually in leaf by the commencement of September 

 have hardly yet begun to show swelling of the leaf-buds. 

 This is not an evil, for mild winters followed by cold 

 springs do far more damage to vegetation. While thus 

 delaying vegetation the lateness of the season seems to 

 make little or no appreciable difference to the breeding 

 season of the birds, and several of the native species nest 

 this month. 



In all bush districts which are not too near the abodes 

 of men, under the shelter of a tree fern, in a bunch of 

 Parsonsia, or in the friendly shade of a mass of native 

 bramble, we may now meet with the large loose nest 

 of the tui. The walls are often intertwined with moss or 

 fibres among the slender twigs and stems of which it is 

 constructed, with brown fern-scales shining through them, 

 while in its evenly hollowed cavity on a lining of fine grass 

 three or four delicately -marked eggs are laid. Their 

 colour is nearly always pink spotted with darker red, or, if 

 white, they are streaked and marked with pink and red. 

 They are fairly large eggs over an inch in length. I do 

 not think that many tuis nest within the Town Belt of 

 Dunedin now, though they visit it for the native Fuchsia 

 which abounds there, and are very fond of eucalyptus 

 blossoms, but they are common enough in the neighbour- 

 hood of the town. They are most pugnacious birds and 

 are able to hold their own against any of their bush 



