52 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
Although in October almost everywhere “ sphit- 
ing” and “sttiching”’ could be heard throughout 
the bush, a wider experience led us to suspect that 
Stitchbirds were not so plentiful as at first sur- 
mised. A comparatively small number of indi- 
viduals appearing and reappearing, like an army 
on the stage, would make a great show. Per- 
chance, too, the remarkable powers of ventrilo- 
quism possessed by the Stitchbird, at any rate 
by the male Stitchbird, might have misled us in 
regard to numbers. I was fortunate enough on 
one occasion both to see the bird call and note 
the mystifying result. Four times, almost at arm’s- 
length, he uttered his resonant “ Ypstt.” The 
first time the call seemed behind me; the second 
directly ahead; the third to one side; and the 
fourth directly ahead but farther away. Prior 
to this experience I had believed we could gauge 
the male’s approach pretty accurately by his 
calls—ever afterwards I distrusted the methods 
of this most accomplished polyphonist. Besides 
cries that might be variously rendered “stt,” 
“ott,” and “whystt”—all of them containing 
a certain far-off resemblance to the English syll- 
able “ stitch,’—I have heard the male sing 
three times. One of these songs, a continuous © 
low warble uttered within a few feet of me in 
late October, was, I believe, a courtship song. 
The others seemed to be soliloquies uttered to 
