HONEY-EATERS. 44 ! 



through the woods in flocks composed of its own kind, occasionally joining com- 

 pany with tits and warblers. As many as twenty or thirty may sometimes be seen 

 together, calling incessantly to one another. They feed partly upon the tiny 

 insects which they find lurking in the crevices of the tree-bark, partly upon the 

 seeds of fir-trees. Their notes are very varied. The eggs of this nuthatch are 

 deposited in the hole of a tree, which is sometimes lined and sometimes left bare ; 

 the eggs being pinkish white dotted with reddish. The young birds leave the nest 

 in the month of June. Mr. Trippe furnishes the following notice of this bird, 

 which he found breeding up to an elevation of eight thousand five hundred feet 

 in Colorado : " The pigmy nuthatch is a delicate little fellow, with more of the 

 habits and voice of S. canadensis than of the white-breasted species ; a similarity 

 carried out by the coloration of the tail, and their half warbler-like movements at 

 times. They are very active and incessantly on the move, creeping over the trunks 

 and limbs of the pines, and tapping vigorously here and there like a woodpecker, 

 and far louder than the other nuthatches do." The adult bird has the upper-parts 

 ashy blue ; the top of the head and sides to below the eyes olive-brown bordered 

 with black ; the tail-feathers are blackish spotted with white, except the two 

 central ones, which are blue ; and the under-parts vary from buffish white to a 

 rich rusty colour. 



THE HONEY-EATERS. 

 Family 



Distinguished from all the families hitherto noticed by their long extensile 

 tongue, adapted for extracting the honey upon which they subsist from the flowers 

 of gum-trees and other trees of the Australasian forests, the honey-eaters form 

 a large and interesting group. In all, the beak is long and slender, with the upper 

 mandible curved, but there are no bristles at the rictus of the gape ; the feet are 

 generally large, and the wings of moderate length. The group is confined to 

 Australasia and the islands of the South Pacific ; and although comprising many 

 genera, our space allows of mention of only a few. 



The Poe honey-eater (Prosthemadera novce-zeala.ndice), com- 

 monly known as the parson-bird, has the long, slender, and consider- 

 ably curved beak, broad at the base, while the tail is long and broad. The sole 

 representative of its genus, this bird is found on both the main islands of New 

 Zealand, where it is one of the most abundant of the indigenous species. Sir 

 Walter Buller writes, that in a state of nature, the tui, or parson-bird, is even 

 more lively and active than in captivity. " It is incessantly on the move, pausing 

 only to utter its joyous notes. The early morning is the period devoted to melody, 

 and the tuis then perform in concert, gladdening the woods with their wild ecstasy. 

 . . . When engaged in song the tui puffs out the feathers of his body, distends his 

 throat, opens wide his beak, with the tongue raised and slightly protruded, and 

 gesticulates with his head, as he pours forth the wild harmony of his soul. A pair 

 may often be observed scarcely a foot apart on the same branch performing in 

 concert, for both sexes sing. The notes are rich and varied, now resembling the 

 striking together of metallic rods, then a long-drawn sigh, a warble, and a sob, 



