The Honey-eaters : The Tui 
111 
in the morning, and serenaded the gentlemen till the time of 
their rising; the ship lying at a convenient distance from the 
shore to hear their music advantageously. These feathered 
choristers, like the English nightingale, never sing in the day 
time.’ ” It seems strange that these observers should not have 
heard the day-song. 
The notes of this most versatile bird are different in different 
parts of the islands; and even in the same locality they vary 
from season to season, new notes being sounded in addition to 
old ones repeated; and it was in truth ignorance of the bird’s 
extensive repertoire that led me to attempt the recording of a 
; ; 
Kree Kraw krurr 
2 } r 
Kree Kraw krurr 
Kree Kree kraw krurr 
clit 
r-U - 
Vb—m 
-7- 
—H 
J 
1/ 
few of his innumerable notes and strains, and songs half- 
uttered. 
The most common call heard in the Stony Bay bush, Banks 
Peninsula, from 1907 on, was that shewn in (1), five clear bell- 
notes, slightly ventriloquous, so that they and the curious 
gutturals following them appeared to come from different birds, 
—the bell-notes from one near by but out of sight, the gut¬ 
turals from the bird under observation. When uttering the 
notes, the bird sits motionless with neck outstretched, usually 
in a high tree, totara or matai. Each guttural has its distinctive 
vowel sound, and the “r ” is the Continental “r”; the sounds 
may be imitated, except in loudness, by softly breathing the words 
past a loose uvula, which will then vibrate. These gutturals 
