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Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
Family : Meliphagidae 
THE HONEY-EATERS 
Great Britain has no representative of this family- New 
Zealand has four:— 
Zosterops caerulescens 
P r o s tli ema dera no v a e - z ea i a n d ia e 
Pogonornis cincta 
An thorn is melanura 
Antliornis melanocephala 
the blight-bird or silver-eye tauhou 
tui 
the stitch-bird hihi 
the bell-bird makomako or korimako 
the Chatham Island bell-bird 
The blight-bird. —Summer plumage: head and over tail 
bright olive; back dark grey; throat yellow; abdomen white; 
Hanks light chestnut. Winter plumage: chin and throat light 
grey. Eye reddish-brown. Bill dark brown, upper mandible 
whitish at the base; toes light brown. Total length 5 in., of 
which the tail is 2 in. 
Eggs .—Three or four; uniform pale blue. Length, about 
§ in.; breadth \ in. 
Nest .—The nest is very slightly built, the cup about 2 in. 
across and 1-i in. deep, the sides so thin in places that the light 
shews through;—yet the whole shell, for it is hardly more, is 
firm and compact, horsehair within, then grass-blades, very 
thin bents, and a little lichen without, all well interwoven and 
felted with spider-web. The cup is usually suspended by the 
edges between two thin twigs, resting for support, it may be, 
on another twig; thin strands and spider-web bind the 
edges to the twigs. The nest is at times suspended to 
the side of hanging vines. I have seen the nest within three 
feet of the ground, no more than a yard or so from a pathway, 
and out at the extremity of the thin branches; I have also seen 
it at a height of five and ten feet from the ground. The cup 
may also be lined with the downy seeds of the clematis. I have 
one nest which is built almost entirely of long flax-fibres from 
the drying-ground of a flax-mill. As may be seen in the illm 
tration, the light shews through the bottom. The illustration 
