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When 



monotonous cry of this little bird calling to its fellows as it threaded its way among the tangled 



growth of reeds. 



Like the other members of the group to which it belongs, it is a lively creature, active in all 



its movements, and easily attracted by an imitation of its note ; but, when alarmed, shy and wary. 

 Its tail, which is long and composed of ten graduated feathers, with disunited filaments, appears 

 to subserve some useful purpose in the daily economy of the bird ; for it is often found very much 

 denuded or worn. When the bird is flying, the tail hangs downward. Its wings are very feebly 

 developed, and its powers of flight so weak that, in open land where the fern is stunted, it may 

 easily be run down and caught with the hand ; but in the swamps it threads its way through the 

 dense reed-beds with wonderful celerity, and eludes the most careful pursuit, 

 or hard pressed in its more exposed haunts, it takes wing, but never rises high, and, after a 

 laboured flight of from fifteen to twenty yards in a direct line, drops under cover again. Its food 

 consists of small insects and their larvse and the minute seeds of various grasses and other plants. 

 It is a matter of extreme difficulty to study the breeding-habits of species that resort to the 

 dense vegetation of the swamps. Even a systematic search for the nests, in such localities, is of 

 very little use, and the collector must trust to the chapter of accidents for opportunities of 

 examining them. Although so common a bird, I have only once succeeded in finding the nest. 

 This discovery was made many years ago, on the edge of a raupo-swamp, near the old Mission 

 Station on the Wairoa river. The nest was a small cup-shaped structure, composed of bents and 

 dry grass-leaves, not very compact, but with a smooth and carefully lined interior. It was 

 attached to reed-stems standing together, and contained four young birds, which showed remark- 

 able nimbleness, darting out of the nest and disappearing in the long grass on the first moment 



of my approach. ' 



Mr. Henry Churton, of Wanganui, informs me that he once found a nest of this species 



containing three eggs. 



Mr. Potts describes the nest as of frail construction, and composed of grass-leaves, with 

 generally a few feathers of the Swamp-hen, and sometimes a small tuft of wool. He has several 

 times found it fixed in a grass tussock, a few inches from the ground. He describes the eggs as 

 " three or four in number, white, speckled with a beautiful tint of reddish purple, which at once 

 readily distinguishes them from those of any other bird." They are ovoido-conical in form, and 

 measure, through the axis, '8 of an inch, with a diameter of '6. The breeding-season appears to 

 embrace the months of October and November ; for on November 4, Mr. Potts found a nest 

 containing three young birds, and three days later, but in another locality, a nest with four 

 eggs in it. 



A 



This pretty little creature is not exempt from the common ills that " flesh is heir to 



»> 



specimen brought to me on the 8th March presented a remarkable diseased swelling, larger than 

 a pea, at the root of the beak; after carefully examining it, I turned the little sufferer free, 

 leaving Dame Nature, in this case, to work out her own cure. 



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