64 BIRD LIFE ON ISLAND AND SHORE 
filtered light, its green gloom. Unlike his relative 
of the south, he seems to have a less marked 
preference for the fringes of the bush, where 
luxuriance of growth often deteriorates at sea- 
level into scrub, jungle, and fern, and on the 
high tops into alpine flora, rooted in peat and shel- 
tered by naked rock. The North Island bird, too, 
seems to be rather less tame. Certainly it does 
not trust its nest and young quite so generously 
and unreservedly into the keeping of mankind. 
Huts and disused outhouses well adapted for 
building purposes, which in the south would 
undoubtedly have been utilised, are neglected. 
Crumbs, too, are not, I think, picked up quite 
unhesitatingly—without at least a due degree of 
inspection. The egg of the North Island bird is 
in my experience rather less elongated. The male 
bird in the north sings from a greater height; the 
female is a little more shy, her habits a little more 
furtive. | 
The most noteworthy dissimilarity, however, in 
the two species lies in their vocal powers, in the 
volume and variety of their song. In fact, since 
discovery of the glorious singing of the North 
Island bird, the small attention bestowed on it 
by New Zealand field naturalists has never ceased 
to amaze me. None have alluded to it with 
special praise, yet I say unhesitatingly that I 
have never heard from any other New Zealand 
