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green colour from the character of the vegetation. These beds of rushes, which form blind 
watercourses during the winter season, are dry in summer and are then a favourite resort for the 
« Swamp-Sparrow,” as this bird is sometimes called. In these localities it may always he found, 
sometimes in pairs but usually singly, the habits of the species being solitary, except of course in the 
breeding-season. But other places also are frequented by it. As already mentioned, it inhabits the 
raupo-swamps ; and in the tangled vegetation which fringes our low-lying rivers, under a thick 
screen of native bramble and convolvulus, its melancholy note may frequently be heard, particularly 
towards nightfall. But it is never met with in the forest, or at any great elevation from the sea. 
During my last visit to the Hot Lakes district, I found it still plentiful m all suitable localities. 
There are marshy tracts occurring at intervals along the road from Taupo to Ohmemutu, and the 
familiar note of this little bird was the only relief to those quiet solitudes. The pairing-season had 
commenced, and it was most pleasant to hear the couples singing their simple duet, the notes being 
always in harmony and responsive. When excited or alarmed its cry becomes sharper, being net 
unlike the call “ Philip, Philip ! ” with a short pause between. 
Like the other members of the group to which it belongs, it is a lively creature, active in all its 
movements, and easily attracted by an imitation of its note ; but, when alarmed, shy and wary. Its 
tail, which is long and composed of ten graduated feathers, with disunited filaments, appears to 
subserve some useful purpose in the daily economy of the bird ; for it is often found very much 
denuded or worn. When the bird is flying, the tail hangs downwards. Its wings are very feebly 
developed, and its powers of flight so weak that, in open land where the fern is stunted, it may easily 
be run down and caught with the hand ; but in the swamps it threads its way through the dense 
reed-beds with wonderful celerity, and eludes the most careful pursuit. When surprised or hard 
pressed in its more exposed haunts, it takes wing, but never rises high, and, after a laboured flight 
of from fifteen to twenty yards in a direct line, drops under cover again. Its food consists of small 
insects and their larva; and the minute seeds of various grasses and other plants. 
Major Jackson, of Kihikihi, who is a keen sportsman, assures me that this bird has a very strong 
scent, so much so that when he has been out pheasant-shooting his pointer has “ stood ” to it quite 
as staunchly as if it had been a game biid. _ _ 
This pretty little creature is not exempt from the common ills that “flesh is heir to. A 
specimen brought to me on the 8th March presented a remarkable diseased swelling, larger than a 
pea, at the root of the beak. After carefully examining it, I turned the little sufferer free, leaving 
Dame Nature, in this case as in others, to work out her own cure. 
It is a matter of extreme difficulty to study the breeding-habits of species that resort to the 
dense vegetation of the swamps. Even a systematic search for the nests, m such localities, is of 
very little” use, and the collector must trust to the chapter of accidents for opportunities of examining 
them. Although so common a bird, I have only once succeeded in finding the nest. This discovery 
was made many years ago, on the edge of a raupo-swamp, near the old Mission Station on the Wairoa 
river. The nest was a small cup-shaped structure, composed of bents and dry grass-leaves, not very 
compact, but with a smooth and carefully lined interior. It was attached to reed-stems standing 
together, and contained four young birds, which showed remarkable nimbleness, darting out of the 
nest and disappearing in the long grass on the first moment of my approach. I have, however, heard 
of others, containing sometimes four eggs, sometimes three. The eggs are ovoido-comcal m form, 
measuring '8 of an inch in length by -6 in breadth, and are creamy white, thickly speckled over the 
entire surface with purplish brown. 
Mr Potts describes the nest as being composed of grass-leaves, with generally a few feathers of 
the Swamp-hen, and sometimes a small tuft of wool. The breeding-season appears to embrace the 
months of October and November ; for on November 4 he found a nest containing three young birds, 
and three days later, but in another locality, a nest with four eggs in it. 
