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This little bird, of sombre plumage and unobtrusive habits, is an interesting species, whether we 
regard it merely as the familiar frequenter of our gardens and hedgerows, or, more especially, as the 
builder of a beautiful pensile nest and the foster-parent of our two parasitical Cuckoos ( Eudynamis 
taitensis and Chrysococcyx lucidus). It belongs to a group of which there are numerous representa- 
tives in Australia, and its habits are in no way different from those of its relations. 
It is plentiful in every part of New Zealand, and appears to be as much at home in the woods 
as in the open scrub. I have seen it hunting for its minute prey in the leafy tops of forest trees, the 
tawa being its favourite resort, probably on account of some special kind of insect food. On one 
occasion, after very cold weather, I picked up a dead one at the foot of an aged kauri tree, with a 
smooth trunk fully seventy feet in height. In the Hot Lakes district I have found it flitting round 
the steaming geysers, apparently unaffected by the sulphur fumes, and catching the minute flies that 
are attracted thither by the humid warmth, Down by the sea-shore its note may be heard in the 
low vegetation that fringes the ocean beach ; whilst far up the mountain-side, where the scrub is 
scarce and stunted, it shares the dominion with the ever-present Zosterops. Its sweet trilling- 
warble is always pleasant to the ear, being naturally associated in the mind with the hum of bees 
among the flowers, and the drumming of locusts in the sunshine. It becomes louder and more 
persistent in the spring-time ; and “ Kua tangi te riroriro ” has become a sort of watchword among 
the Maoris, signifying “ Planting-time has commenced: let us be up and doing.” I remember the 
late Sir Donald McLean commencing one of his most successful Maori speeches with those figurative 
words, using them of course in a political sense *. 
Its food consists of minute flies and insects and their larvte, in the eager pursuit of which it 
appears to spend its whole time, moving about with great agility and uttering at short intervals a 
note of much sweetness, though of little variety. The bird is easily attracted by an imitation 
of this note, however rudely attempted, and may be induced to fly into the open hand by quickly 
revolving a leaf or small fern-frond, so as to represent the fluttering of a captive bird. Layard 
compares the note to the creaking sound of a wheel-barrow ; and I have sometimes heard it so 
subdued and regular, as to be scarcely distinguishable from the musical chirping of the pihareinga or 
native cricket. 
When resting on a twig, it has a habit of flipping its wings after the manner of a Goldfinch. 
Its ordinary flight is in short undulations with the tail outspread, showing the markings on the lateral 
feathers. 
Where the rank growth of bracken covers the open land, mixed here and there with the 
flowering Leptospermum and blending its sombre tints with the dark-green clumps of tupakihi — 
forming together a close thicket over which the wild convolvulus twines itself and exhibits its 
pendent flowers of pink and white — here the Grey Warbler has its home in absolute security, and 
here in some shady recess it hangs its pear-shaped nest and rears its little brood. It builds a large 
and remarkably ingenious nest, in which it lays from three to six eggs, and, as I am inclined to think, 
breeds twice in the season. The construction of the nest, which is of great size as compared with 
the bird, occupies of necessity a considerable time. In one instance noted, I observed the birds 
collecting materials for their work towards the end of August, and the young did not quit the clump 
of climbing-rose in which the nest was placed till the first week in October. 
Selected on account of its unwearied industry, or because of the peculiar fitness of its warm domed 
nest for the nurture of a semitropical species, this little bird is the willing victim of our two migratory 
Cuckoos, the Warauroa and Koheperoa — the former of which, at any rate, deposits its egg in the nest 
of this species, while both of them delegate to this tiny creature the task of rearing their young. 
* “ I hca koe i te tangihanga o te riroriro ” ? (Where were you when the Riroriro began to sing ?) : a proverb applied to a 
lazy man who neglects his planting. 
