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be a grievous pity for the bird to die out altogether. The general testimony goes to show 

 that the protection extended to the Tuis had the desired effect, this species being now 

 more numerous everywhere than it was fifteen years ago. Would it not be well to extend 

 the same protection to its small congener, the Korimako, whose haunts and habits are 

 almost precisely similar?" 



On February 15th last I shot a young Korimako on the summit of one of 

 the lower ranges of the Tararua, at an elevation above the sea of 800 feet, about six 

 miles in a direct line from Kapiti. I heard the sweet song of the adult, but did not 

 actually see the bird. They were feeding on the flowers of the tawhiwhi or climbing 

 rata (Metrosideros scandens), and, according to our Maori attendants, were visitors from Kapiti 

 Island where, as already stated, this songster is still comparatively abundant. 



Writing to me on July 17th, 1902, Captain Gilbert Mair says : " I forget whether I 

 wrote telling you of two delightful trips to Whale Island. On the top of the island (1,280 

 feet) there is a most beautiful patch of bush of surprising variety, and there I was de- 

 lighted to find a large number of Korimakos and a few Popokatea. This is probably due 

 to the fact that the European proprietors do all they can to prevent trespassers landing 

 on the island and disturbing the birds. 



Mr. Eobert Mair, writing to me from Whangarei, under date of September 11th, says: 

 " I was out last week in a six-ton yacht hapuku-nshing at the Poor ■ Knights, in the 

 Hauraki Gulf. On the largest of the Poor Knights Islands there are numbers of Korimako. 

 It was delightful to see them flying from bush to bush overhead, and to hear them singing 

 their sweet notes." And, again, on October 6th, 1900, Mr. Eobert Mair, says : " The Poor 

 Knights Islands, 4^ miles to the N.W. of Orangia, are of a different formation to any- 

 thing I have yet seen in New Zealand. The cliffs rise sheer from the water nearly all round, 

 and there is scarcely a spot to land on. The Korimakos are very numerous there. You see 

 and hear them amongst the scrubby trees of these and the adjacent islets, and it is a very 

 delightful reminiscence of the olden times." 



From Mrs. Halcombe, a daughter of the celebrated ornithologist, the late William 

 Swainson, F.R.S.,* I have received the following interesting note : " Bell-birds are very 

 plentiful on the Island of Kapiti. I stayed there for nearly three weeks in 1894, and 

 every morning, about four o'clock, I was charmed to hear a perfect concert from the 

 Bell-bird. The house was quite close to a beautiful piece of bush, which was full of. native 

 birds, and, to judge from the noise they made, the Bell-birds must have been very numerous. 

 . . . . I have all the tastes of my dear father, but I have not had the chance to develop 

 them. I cannot help loving all the beautiful world of Nature, and I wish I had the time 

 and opportunity to study all her wonderful secrets. The longest lifetime, it seems to me, is 

 all too short for the full enjoyment of her treasures." 



I was delighted on my first visit to Stewart Island to find this bird as numerous as it 

 formerly was in the North Island. It was very pleasant to hear its dulcet notes in the woods 

 again. Some of them — especially the " cough " — are not to be distinguished from those of 

 the Tui. My collector (Mr. Marklund) writes : " I took a run up Mount Anglian, but was caught 

 in bad weather, and could not do much. I found the Tui and the Makomako at an elevation 

 of 2,300 feet above the sea. It is a curious thing that scrub grows to 3,150 feet on Mount 

 Anglian, whereas on Table Hill one loses all bush at 1,900 feet, and still the difference in 

 latitude is so small." 



* It was from Mr. Swainson that I received my earliest lessons in zoological drawing. He had long before published 

 a beautiful series of " Zoological Illustrations" (1820-21). "All the figures were drawn by the author, who, as 

 an ornithological artist, had no rival in his time. Every plate is not beyond criticism, but his worst drawings show 

 more knowledge of bird-life than do the best of his English or French contemporaries " (< Dictionary of Birds,' p. 28) 



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