52 
This lively little species is confined to the wooded parts of the South Island *. I met with it in 
Nelson and in Otago, but more abundantly in the Canterbury provincial district. On Banks 
Peninsula I found it particularly numerous, but I was never able to discover its nest. 
Like the other members of the group to which it belongs, it is a gregarious species, associating 
together in small flocks, and hunting diligently for its insect food among the branches and dense 
foliage of the forest undergrowth. On being disturbed or alarmed they quickly assemble and 
chirp round the intruder for a few minutes ; and on being reassured they disperse again in search 
of food. 
One of their ordinary notes is not unlike the cry of Cvcadion cctvwiculcitus , although, of couise, 
much feebler. 
I have seen them consorting with the Yellow-head in the low underwood, owing doubtless to a 
community of interest, their habits of feeding being very much the same. They seem to prefer the 
outskirts of the bush, where insect-life is more abundant ; but they are also to be met with m the 
thick forest. 
During severe seasons it has been known to leave the shelter of the bush and to frequent the 
sheep-stations, flitting about the meat gallows and picking off morsels of fat from the bones and skins 
of the butchered animals, exactly after the manner of Zosterops under similar circumstances. 
In the stomachs of those I examined I found the scale-insect, with minute coleoptera, diptera, 
and their lame, all testifying to the strictly insectivorous character of the bird. The ovary of one 
which I opened on November 3 contained a small cluster of eggs, the largest being of the size of 
buck-shot, indicating a late nesting-season. 
A nest of this species in the Canterbury Museum is of a rounded form, with a slightly tapering 
apex, and not unlike a large pear in shape. The structure is composed of dry vegetable fibres, 
fragments of wool, moss, spiders’ nests, and other soft materials closely felted together. The entrance 
i s' placed on the side, about one third distant from the top, and is perfectly round, with smoothened 
edges. The interior cavity is deeply lined with soft, white, pigeon feathers f. It will be seen, there- 
fore, that the nest of this species shows its affinity to Gerygone rather than to Clitonyx, with which 
it is associated in the British Museum Catalogue (vol. viii.). I have grouped the birds together on 
one Plate merely for the sake of artistic convenience. 
This bird breeds late in the year, for the nest just mentioned was found far above the 
Eangitata gorge, in the month of December, and contained three nestlings. Mr. Potts reports that 
it was “ placed in a black-birch between the trunk and a spur, from whence sprouted out a thick tuft 
of dwarfed sprays, about seven feet from the ground.” He says that it usually lays three eggs and 
that he has a note of finding the young in the nest as late as December 25th. 
There are two eggs of this bird in the Otago Museum. They are broadly ovoido-conical, 
measuring -7 of an inch in length by -6 in breadth, and white with small purplish and brown spots, 
which run together and form a zone round the larger end. 
* Captain Hutton, writing from Auckland, in tlie North Island, stated, in a letter to ‘The Ibis’ (1867, p. 379), that 
Certhiparus novee zealandice is “ one of the commonest birds in the bush about here ; ” but he was evidently confounding this 
bird with some other species, probably Clitonyx albicapilla, at that time common enough. He repeated, in his ‘ Catalogue of 
the Birds of New Zealand ’ (published in 1871) that Certhiparus novee zealandice inhabits “ both islands ; ” but this is undoubtedly 
an error. I have never heard of the occurrence of this bird, even as a straggler, in any part of the North Island. 
f Cf. Trans. N.-Z. Instit. 1872, vol. v. pi. 37. 
