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air together with much clamour, and sometimes mount to a considerable height. I have frequently 
seen a number of them pursue and harass the Bush-Hawk, which is doubtless their worst natural 
enemy. Their ordinary flight is rapid and undulating, being performed, as it were, by a succession 
of jerks. During the breeding-season the male bird frequently soars, mounting to a height in the air, 
and then descends with tremulous wings and outspread tail, uttering a prolonged trilling note, very 
pleasant to the ear. 
This is one of the few species that appear to thrive and increase in the cultivated districts ; and 
in localities where formerly it was only tolerably plentiful it has kept pace with the progress of 
colonization, becoming every year more abundant. It frequents the mountain-tops, being often met 
with above the snow-line. Mr. Ernest Bell observed one on the very summit of Mount Egmont. 
It is never met with in the woods ; and I have observed that in the open country it is rarely 
seen to alight on a green tree or shrub, although often poising itself on the slender stalks of the 
Phormium tenax or on a bunch of fern. I have occasionally seen it dusting itself after the manner 
of some gallinaceous birds, rolling in the dust with evident delight, and then shaking its feathers, 
probably in order to free the body of parasitic insects. 
It is amusing to watch a pair of them chasing and making love to each other at the com- 
mencement of the breeding-season, each one alternately springing up in the air, with expanded wings 
and tail, and curvetting over the other in the most playful manner. The call of the young resembles 
the sharp note of the Silver-eye ( Zosterops coerulescens ) ; and when engaged in feeding them, the parent 
bird displays an unusual degree of caution in the presence of an intruder, alighting ten or fifteen 
yards from the nest, and loitering about for a considerable time with the food in its bill before 
attempting to deliver it. I have seen a pair skimming playfully together over the ground but 
close to the surface, when one would suddenly drop out of sight in the vicinity of the nest, leaving 
the other to pursue its wayward flight, as if to divert attention. 
The natives catch this bird by means of a running-noose at the end of a long stick ; and there 
are various modes of trapping it, very generally known and appreciated among colonial school-boys. 
I have noticed that it is very subject to a disease of the foot, which takes the form of a large 
irregular swelling. This may probably result from accidental burns ; for I have often observed 
these birds alight on ground over which a fire had recently passed, leaving a light surface of 
smouldering ashes, and rise again immediately in evident pain. 
On the Hastings-Napier railway line and elsewhere I have observed a peculiar habit which 
this species has developed of following the train. I have seen, in autumn, a flight of a hundred birds 
keeping abreast or a little ahead of the train in rapid motion for two or three miles at a stretch, 
picking up stragglers en route, and to all appearance thoroughly enjoying the excitement. 
The breeding-season of the New-Zealand Pipit extends from October to February or March, and, 
like the other members of the same group, it appears to rear two broods ; for I have seen well- 
fledged young ones in November, while nests containing eggs are often met with as late in the season 
as January or the early part of February. The nest is composed of dry grass and other fibrous 
substances loosely put together, and is always placed on the ground, generally in a horse’s footprint 
or in some natural depression, and under shelter of a tussock or clump of rushes. The eggs are 
usually four in number, rather ovoid o-conical in shape, measuring, as a rule, - 9 of an inch by ’65, and 
marked over the entire surface with numerous spots or freckles of dark grey on a paler or ashy 
ground. A fine series of eight in my son’s collection exhibit a considerable amount of individual 
variation both in form and colouring. The smallest of these measures - 85 inch in length by '6t> in 
breadth, and is almost a perfect oval; and the largest 1 inch in length by - 70 in breadth. The 
ground-colour varies from pale stone-grey to a warm creamy-grey, and the markings pass through 
every gradation, from a covering of uniform speckles and freckles of greyish brown to a much daiker 
character, blotched and mottled with purplish brown of different shades. 
K 
