The Warblers : The Grey Warbler 
51 
the writer placed in the Canterbury museum a pensile nest of 
this species that had been built in a currant bush, showing 
some of the bunches of crimson berries which had ripened 
against the well-felted sides of the nest, and were left all un¬ 
touched by the parent birds and by their tender offspring. 
The song is a trill rather than a warble, the notes being clear 
and distinct, and only occasionally lending themselves to 
vocalization. When two birds are searching together for their 
insect prey, they indulge in a faint, cheerful, twittering con¬ 
versation. I saw two feeding in this way, keeping close 
together as they flitted from spray to spray, searching under 
the leaves and in the crevices of the bark with their bright 
eyes. Once one as it w T ere kissed the other,—very quickly—no 
more than a peck;—probably a bonne bouche was offered and 
taken. Now and again a soft, barely audible exchange of 
de.ar de ar de.ar de.ar teetee de.ar de.ar 
notes took place, sounding like monosyllabic endearments, as in 
(1), the sound being almost like ‘‘You, you; you, you.” I heard 
two uttering the slurred call and reply of (2) ; and when they 
came and settled above me, busily scrutinizing all likely insect 
lurking-places, one continually repeated quickly the notes of (3). 
In the vocalization the d of dear sounded as when one speaks 
the word dear without the tongue quite touching the palate. 
The first five couple of notes took little over a second in utter¬ 
ance ; the tee tee was nearer the sound of a whistle. 
The common song in the bush of Stony Bay, Banks Peninsula, 
is a long, plaintive, rambling, indeterminate trill, lasting usually 
about five seconds, but running on without break often for eight, 
and for so much as twelve seconds, about eight notes to the 
