151 
The Honey-eaters: The Bell-bird 
then ceases for the rest of the day, until the birds begin to 
koro, or intimate the day has closed, and then in some paits 
of the sonth they again assemble to sing their evening hymn; 
but, this is not generally done, the favourite time is the 
morning. 7 7 
The bird was known to Wohlers (WM, p. 117) as koparapara, 
his residence being at Ruapuke, near Stewart Island. lie 
wr ites, “.when they have satisfied their thirst for honey, 
they sometimes all sit in one tree and sing a merry song, as if 
they wished to express their gratitude in this way. They keep 
such good time that a musician can write their notes down. 
The sound is loud and metallic, like the clear sound of a 
bell. 77 I was pleased when I came on this note. 
During the many years that I have been recording the songs 
of our birds, I had only twice seen a male bell-bird,—on two 
consecutive days,—until the year 1924, on Kapiti, when most 
that I saw were males. Almost all the songs recorded are 
songs of females. 
tiu tiu tiu tiu hoo.ee.oo 
The common call is a quick, bright, loudly-uttered phrase, 
as in (1). In sound the notes are mellow whistles, usually 
without trace of vocalization except in the last two, which 
take the sound of tiu tiu. They formed the characteristic con¬ 
clusion to the bell-bird call at Stony Bay, on Banks Peninsula, 
the phrase (2) taking less than a second in utterance. The 
pitch of the opening note, and consequently of the whole 
phrase, varied constantly, as much as five tones, even during 
the same day and the same hour. The tiu tiu was very sharply 
uttered; and it may be observed that this vocalization, tiu , enters 
into the notes of several birds. At times the slur implied is 
bafflingly fast, the interval eluding definition; at times the 
interval may be clearly perceived and noted. It appears to be 
