118 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
take all manner of variations, and as they are more often 
heard with calls or songs than alone, their dilferent qualities 
will be considered together with the notes of the call or strain 
of which they form part, or upon whose music they intrude 
They have been likened to coughs, sneezes, laughs, the shat¬ 
tering of a pane of glass,—and the similes are not inapt. At 
tunes they aie of the same duration as the notes amongst which 
they occur; at times they vary, as indicated by the small notes 
in (2) and (3). The bell-notes are repeated from four to 
eight times, five being the usual number; and I have found 
that those sung on the same day vary little in pitch; often not 
at all. 
They were higher in pitch during 1911, as in (4) to (7), and 
this pitch is the same as that recorded by Fenwick, when 
travelling in the southern part of the South Island. These 
notes were uttered in a tempo considerably faster than the 
tempo of (1);—about five notes in a second. They sounded 
like the tinkling of a distant sheep-bell, varied in number from 
four to six, and varied slightly in pitch on different days. The 
notes of (5) were of the same quality as those of (4), but they 
wei e not divided into pairs by accent, and they were occasionally 
followed by a drop to c, and once by an expletive vocalized clit. 
In (6) two clear notes, like beats on a musically-ringing anvil, 
preceded the sheep-bell notes, and a guttural aurr followed. 
Instead of being preceded by two anvil-notes, the sheep-bells 
vere at times followed by tv r o notes of a reedy quality, broader 
and more blatant than the tone of a clarinet, yet musical. In 
v7) the sheep-bells were preceded by a long-drawn note like the 
CI 7 of a goose, but plaintive and melodious, as though a goose 
might sing a swan-song. The drop on d w r as staccato, and the 
ciy at times vms followed by the gutturals Ur aw krurr instead 
of sheep-bells. The cry when uttered once only w r as more drawn 
out and melodious than w T hen uttered several times as in (8). 
Here the notes were connected, but not slurred. Other than the 
goose-cry, I could think of no similar sound, excepting the 
imaginary one of a bell sounding through a membranous kazoo, 
suddenly muted as the e w r as struck. It might be vocalized 
