44 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
birds, when collecting nectar in October from the 
long waxy bells of the alsewosmia macrophylla, as 
to whether they stood on head or heels. Landing 
always on the frail outermost tips of the favoured 
shrub, bird, blossom, and green leaves seemed in- 
termixed beyond hope of disentanglement. When 
feeding on this abundant scrub, the approach of 
the birds—never the birds themselves—could be 
detected far away, the sudden shaking of the 
still greenery showing distinct in the calm of un- 
ruffled leafage, as the rises of a single trout in a 
glassy pool. 
A yet additional liveliness is lent to the habits 
of the Stitchbird by the motion—perpetual motion 
it may be termed—of the tail. Truly, that unruly 
member is never still. Only during flight is it 
carried in the normal position—at the trail ; other 
times it stands erected or semi-erected, the angle 
of inclination reflecting pretty accurately the 
amount of energy put forth in the previous move. 
It seems to be a sort of automatic air-brake to 
facilitate rapid haltings and endless instantaneous 
changes of posture. The Stitchbird has borrowed 
the Tui’s lightening cleavage of the air, the Bell- 
bird’s dual flight when a pair fly, one exactly 
equidistant above the other, through labyrinthine 
intricacies of bole and bough, the Fantail’s 
advance along a level branch, at each rapid hop 
jerking round so that where head was is tail, 
