114 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
attempts have been made to bring this bird to England, but all 
hitherto have failed. 7 ’ It appears, however, to have been 
brought alive to England four years earlier, in 1845, the bird 
then brought being bought for the Earl of Derby’s collection 
at Knowsley. 
During the short periods of time I have enjoyed in the bush 
—two or three weeks of holiday each year at Christmas and 
New Year, the tui is certainly the bird that has given me most 
constant pleasure. Others, such as the male bell-bird, may 
have a more exquisite song; the warbler may charm with a 
longer sustained melody;—but none has the variety of notes 
of the tui, either in range or quality, or his versatile manner of 
delivery; none is more tantalizing in revealing what he might 
accomplish were it worth his while; his whisper-songs are 
almost as dainty as those of the bell-bird; his jangles are inimit¬ 
able. Then the bird has an appearance; his very flight is that 
of a person of consequenceand it is a most beautiful sight to 
see the tui rifling, on a sunny day, the honey of the deep-red 
flowers of the long-bladed flax. The blossoms actuallv seem 
coy, drooping and swaying away from him; but he fondles, 
cranes, and persuades, in all postures, and always gracefully; 
and is rewarded, not only with the honey, but with an adorn¬ 
ment of the vermilion pollen of the flowers, till he has the appear¬ 
ance of a striking new and rare variety of his species,—has the 
appearance, too, of the vagrant Whatihua, whose stolen visits 
his wife discovered through the red favours of his attractive 
forest-maiden. He sings at all times, too; by day, and by 
night; at rest, on the nest, and on the wing; is even musical in 
an Aeolian way when diving stone-like from a height into his 
umbrageous haunt. Whilst he usually resorts to the spreading 
heads of the higher trees, his excursions often take him near 
ground; he looks beautiful, if watchfully apprehensive, when 
like a nymph to the bath address’d;” he will sail like a bolt 
along a favourite open aisle among the lofty pillars of the bush; 
and on one occasion when I had seated myself for purposes of 
observation at the curved terminal of such an aisle, the sudden 
whirring flutter of his wings in his arrested flight within a few 
