The Rifleman 
a few inches; as though the bird had to wind itself at each 
movement, and one heard the snapping of the tiny pawls of 11 
winding gear. When the note was strengthened, the vocalization 
changed from titit to tutut In (3) there is an approach to 
song, the call being rounded off with a slur, varying m pitch 
from time to time. The notes of (3) are considerably faster 
than the chirr of the cricket, there being twelve notes or more 
in a second, the note having the effect of a vibrato. imes 
the vibrato runs down the scale in fractions of a tone, as m ( ), 
when there were ten or eleven notes in a regular drop from g o 
d flat. This phrase was the reply of one rifleman answering 
£ 
another in the twilight. Some notes, sounding like trip, trip, 
were faint chirps, uttered by the birds as several of them were 
with much alertness running up branches, const y _ = 
their wings, thrusting black thin gleaming hills into every crevice, 
examining every Mtak. with j** 
I took their eyes to be black; hut the naturalists say they are 
dark brown. The breasts were soft silvery grey, c ose y spec v ec 
with dark brown under the throat and on the upper breast^ 
hack darker in colour. On one occasion when I was calling a 
fantail, a young rifleman came and alit on a 
twig immediately before my face, anc every 
time I called it stretched towards me, with 5 
wings outspread and fluttering, and with mouth 
agape uttered the long-drawn vibrato of (o). 
It apparently took me for its mother; but ^nothex 
presently came, sat close beside her extravagant nest g, 
coaxed it away. 1QQ \ one 
Of the sixteen Maori names recorded (W , P- 
most commonly used is titipounamu. 
