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evening performance : the former consists of a scale of notes commencing very high and running 

 down to a low key, uttered in quick succession, and with all the energy of a challenge to the rest 

 of the feathered tribe ; and I have sometimes heard a native, when listening to this strain, exclaim 

 " Ka kanga te manu ra ! " (How that bird swears !). The evening performance is merely a short 

 chirping note, quickly repeated, and with a rather melancholy sound. Three or four of them will 

 sometimes join in a chirping chorus, and continue it till the shades of advancing twilight have 

 deepened into night. 



It lives almost entirely on small insects and the worms and grubs which are to be found 

 among decaying leaves and other vegetable matter on the surface of the ground in every part of 

 the woods. 



It generally breeds in the months of October and November. It constructs a large and 

 compact nest, composed externally of coarse moss firmly interwoven and thickly lined inside with 

 the soft hair-like substance which covers the young stems of the tree-fern. It is usually built 

 against the bole of a tree, at a moderate elevation from the ground, being often found attached to 

 and supported by the wiry stems of the kiekie (Freycinetia banksii), a climbing parasitical plant 

 which is everywhere abundant. I have found scores of the nests of this species, and almost inva- 

 riably in the situation described. I found one, however, placed in the fork of a tree at some 

 elevation, and another in the truncated stem of a tree-fern (Oyathea dealbata). The eggs are 

 usually three in number, broadly ovoido-conical, and measuring - 95 of an inch in length by *70 

 in breadth ; they are of a creamy white colour, thickly freckled and speckled with purple and 

 brown, these markings being denser at the thick end, where they form an indistinct purplish 

 zone. 



Should the nest happen to be invaded after the young are hatched, the parent birds manifest 

 the utmost solicitude, hopping about near the intruder with outspread and quivering wings, 

 uttering a low piping note, and showing every symptom of real distress. 



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