156 Bird-Song: and New Zealand Song Birds 
sharp, clear note—a hiccuped drop of song that one could 
imagine as falling from the honey-loving bird with a bell-like 
pat into some resonant receptacleto be hoarded, one of many 
glittering gems of song, against some period of songless penury. 
The bird ejected the note almost as one would spit a hair from 
the lips. I saw one bird in a shrubby ivy-tree (Nothopanax 
arboreum ), fifteen feet distant, uttering the note. The bill 
was opened fairly wide, the throat swelled quickly and con¬ 
tracted with each note: a variant of the phrase (3) sometimes 
followed. In the shrub there seemed to be an answer to the tiu— 
a plaintive slurred note; only one bird was seen, however. Quite 
different in quality, though similar in producing a deep effect, 
was the note of 16, heard on Kapiti at the end of 1916. It was 
almost vocalized kahk, and sounded like a far distant bell. It 
was heard on a day when a strong south-east wind was blowing, 
and it sounded like the beat of a bell blown from the distant 
mainland. The bird was searching for insects in a ngaio, blown 
and tossed by the wind, and it uttered these notes, at intervals 
of two or three seconds, as it moved about busily among the 
agitated foliage. The penetrating nature of a single rich note is 
evident in the wide appeal of a mellow bell. 
The cry of the young bird is on a single note; but the appeal 
in that is chiefly to the parent bird. A young bird uttering a high 
staccato a was searching first in a manuka ( Leptospermum ) then 
in an Olearia forsteri, constantly uttering this highly-pitched 
note. Later on the note was / instead of a, and this young bird 
sat in the top branches of a manuka repeating it incessantly 
twice a second for minutes without pause. The old bird came at 
intervals to feed it. The cry would cease for a couple of seconds 
whilst the food was being given, and then begin again. Birds 
are apparently able to sing as well with their mouths full of 
food as empty: I have seen this in more than one New Zealand 
bird, and also in the British blackbird. 
Often the notes of the bell-bird are flute-like or bell-like, and 
extremely mellifluous in quality, more especially when deliber¬ 
ately sung; but the more common notes, those of the usual call, 
are rather clear whistles. It is rather from her occasional notes 
