Ordek PASSERIFORMES.l 



[Family MUSCICAPIDJE. 



TIHIPIDURA FLABELLIFEKA. 



(PIED FANTAIL.) 



Rhipidura flabellifera (Gmelin), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, yoI. i., p. 69. 



In October, 1880, during a storm-bound visit to Motutaiko, in the Taupo Lake, I found the 

 nest of this species, with four eggs in it, secured very neatly to a twig of kawakawa (Piper 

 excelsum), a tree to which, as I have observed, the Fantail is very partial for nesting purposes. 

 We had made our camp-fire immediately under the nest before discovering it, and, although 

 we remained there several hours, the birds did not appear to be in any way inconvenienced 

 by the volume of smoke that came from the drift-wood fire, and enveloped them completely 

 from time to time. Both sexes incubate in turn. There could be no mistake in this 

 observation, because one of the birds had lost its tail, and could be readily distinguished from 

 the other. 



One has to speak of so many of our species as decreasing, or as having reached the 

 border land of extinction, that it is quite refreshing to be able to record that the Fantailed 

 Flycatcher — that pretty little denizen of our woods — is perhaps more plentiful than ever; at 

 any rate it shows no sign of diminution. Mr. Kobert Mair, writing to me from Whangarei 

 on September 11th, says : " I saw a pleasing sight a few weeks since. There are generally 

 five or six Fantails flitting about our shrubbery in the evening, catching gnats in the air and 

 diverting one by their fantastic aerial evolutions. But on this particular evening I counted 

 no less than twenty-five of them at one time." 



I never see this little bird, or hear its "laugh," with- 

 out being reminded of the romantic Maori myth of Maui's 

 disaster, which brought death into the world, when 

 Hinenuitepo, awakened by the merriment of the Tiwaiwaka, 

 closed her mouth and put an end to Maui's ambitious 

 dream of conquering man's last enemy. The story has 

 been well told by Sir George Grey in his " Polynesian 

 Mythology." 



A writer in the Field newspaper, of August 20th, 1881 

 (p. 279), under the head of 'New Zealand Ornithology,' 

 says : " There is an Owl called Morepork, so named after 

 its cry; and I must not forget the Pi-wakawaka, a little 

 pied-brown bird, belonging to the Fantail Flycatchers, 

 a pair of which generally attach themselves to the way- 

 farer in the bush, fluttering close to him the whole day. Colonists come to love him, 

 and the Maoris have many quaint superstitions about him. An old Maori once said to me : 

 ' Ah ! they are little spirits that come to see what man is doing by day and go back to 

 tell God at night. To-morrow they will say : " We saw the pakeha and the Maori together 

 in the bush; they ate of the same and drank of the same, and they slept together in one 

 blanket like brothers"; and God will say it is good.'" 



I have already recorded pretty fully the nesting habits of this fairy Flycatcher (vol. i., 

 pp. 70-71). During the pairing season the birds have a habit of often sitting together on the 



