On some Bush-birds of New Zealand. 519 
XXIX.—Field-Notes on some of the Bush-birds of New Zea- 
land. By J.C. McLean, M.B.O.U.—With an Appendix 
on the Species of the Genus Pseudogerygone. By W. Rh. 
OGILVIE-GRANT. 
THE present article is based on observations made, during 
the winter and spring of 1906, in a part of the North 
Island of New Zealand, some forty or fifty miles inland to 
the N.N.W. of Poverty Bay. Here, while I was supervisor of 
part of a large area of bush which was being felled to make 
way for stock, there were afforded, during my daily walks 
(chiefly through standing bush) to the different gangs of 
men employed, exceptional opportunities of studying bird- 
life. This block of bush, some three thousand acres in extent 
and contiguous to one of the largest areas of virgin forest- 
remaining in the Colony, was felled during April and the 
succeeding six months and was burnt last December. Next 
year some four thousand acres more are to be felled by the 
owner in one block in the same locality. 
Roughly the bush-country consisted of three classes :— 
(1) The birch-ridge, some three thousand feet in elevation, 
clothed on its southern side with great birches (Notofagus 
fuscus) interspersed with various other trees, and covered 
with Tawa (Beilschmiedia tawa) along its base. On top of this 
ridge the vegetation cons'sted almost wholly of birch and the 
handsome Tawari (Iverba brexioides) with scattered Miro 
(Podocarpus) and other pines, and there was not much under- 
erowth. (2) The Tawa-bush of the south-western spurs, 
dense, and in most parts tangled with undergrowth of supple- 
jack vines and shrubby trees. These spurs, from which the 
birch was practically absent, gave way on the west to Maunga- 
haumia Mountain, rising to 3979 feet—a part as yet unfelled. 
(3) The lower undulating country between the other classes, 
varying from 1500 to 2300 feet, intersected by many creeks and 
clothed for the most part with low (40 feet) Tawhera ( Wecn- 
mannia silvicola) and Manuka (Leptospernum ericoides) — 
with hardly any undergrowth,—and shewing here and there 
low spurs densely clothed with a peculiar grass-tree or Nei nei 
2M 2 
