114 Bird -Lore 



but is powerless to preserve them from what, in the end, may prove a 

 far more disastrous enemy. To kill the meadow mice which destroy the 

 rigging and sails of his boats, Mr. Cobb has brought cats to the island. 

 As usually happens when these creatures find they can fare better by 

 relying on their own efforts than on their supposed owner's care, they have 

 become self-supporting and live largely on the birds of the beach. Whether 

 in the winter the food supply is so diminished that their numbers become 

 correspondingly decreased remains to be seen; but, at the best, the exis- 

 tence of this predaceous animal among birds whose young are be at 

 its mercy must be viewed with the utmost concern by every one interested 

 in the preservation of the bird-life of Cobb's Island. 



In the Haunts of New Zealand Birds 



BY CHARLES KEELER 



THE good Bishop of Dunedin takes a just pride in his extensive 

 gardens. They are located well out of the city confines, occupying 

 a charming natural gully which has been preserved with all its 

 wealth of native verdure. A stream winds through it ; a waterfall splashes 

 down upon strange and beautiful ferns; pittosporum trees reach their tall, 

 slender branches into the light, and in the damp solitude grow lofty tree- 

 ferns, giving the place the aspect of a forest of the Carboniferous period. 

 The Bishop escorted me over his domains, and in his excellent company 

 I first made the acquaintance of a number of the New Zealand birds. 



As we strolled through the wealth of tropical -looking foliage, a sprink- 

 ling of sunlight illumined the shadowy glen where a whisper of wind was 

 audible amid the plumed tree-ferns and the scraggly boughs of the fuchsia 

 trees. The voices of many birds rang in the solitude, — the liquid 

 gurgle of the Bell-bird, the call of the Fan-tail, the plaintive ditty of 

 the Gray Warbler, sweetly mingling with the silver cry of the cascade 

 leaping over the mossy rocks, and the purling of the streamlet between 

 its ferny banks. 



The Bell-bird is an unassuming vocalist, about the size and build of 

 an Oriole and colored in general an olive-green, brightening to a yel- 

 lowish on the sides. A dark purple hue sufifuses the head of the male, 

 while the under parts are plumbeous in tone. The female lacks the 

 purple and has a fine line of white on each side of the neck, reaching 

 from the corner of the mouth. The male bird would pause now and 

 again in its active, restless search for insects in the fuchsia bark, to utter 

 its rich, melodious warble which reminded me somewhat of the strain of 

 our western Meadowlark. I also heard a single, bell-like note which, 

 when uttered by a number of singers in concert, had something of the 



