108 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
The call-note is a plaintive slurred note, as in (1), uttered 
once or twice, coming* at times from all the birds as they move 
feeding in a little flock of ten or more. The same slurred note, 
uttered more briskly, is the one used when the bird is flying 
high in the air at night during local migration. One evening in 
April I heard such a flock passing over the town of Christ¬ 
church. It was twenty minutes past nine, and for one or two 
minutes the sound came from the air, passing away, apparently, 
to the south-east. It sounded like scores of birds all twittering, 
almost singing, the two notes of (a) in (2), or the slurs of (b), 
i 
4 
m 
K.S S 
tiu tiu tiu 
ti . u i „ u _ i tweet twee .wee wee wee.weet 
or the note and slur of (c) ; or (a) and (b) combined; a medley 
of sound; individuals could not be distinguished. The notes, 
whilst not so long drawn as the ordinary call, had yet the 
characteristic plaintive sound of the note of the blight-bird. The 
call (1) appears to be the flock-call; when two birds are feeding 
together, they indulge in a much fainter, conversational twitter, 
the notes of (3) repeated: these, though uttered by two birds 
no more than ten or twelve feet distant, were barely audible. 
As they twittered, the birds moved about, preening themselves, 
and searching for insects. I have only once heard the song 
sung for any length of time. This was on Banks Peninsula, 
and the song was very quiet and sweet in quality, somewhat 
like the song of a canary, but not nearly as loud and shrill. 
