THE SADDLEBACK 157 
More exquisite specks of colour are not often to 
be seen. 
The plumage of the yearling bird was less gay. 
It was the hue of blended chocolate and black— 
ink, as it were, stirred into cocoa,—the conjoined 
tints producing a brown effect; whilst here and 
there were feathers or parts of feathers, promising 
in the immediate future the full maturity of colour. 
The ecaruncles of these first -season birds, or 
“ brownies’ as we called them, though visible, 
were wholly undeveloped. Usually these 
“brownies ” were unaccompanied, solitary. One 
of them, which lived near our camp, roosting at 
night and often resting by day in a small turf- 
thatched maimai, was many times disturbed from 
its comfortable quarters during the first few days 
of our residence, whilst in fact we still believed 
in the “brownies” as a species, and vainly 
searched for their nests. Their call, too, was but 
a section of the mature birds’ call; and whilst 
the full-plumaged birds neither courted nor shunned 
observation, the “‘ brownies’ were distinctly in- 
quisitive. From a foot or two above the observer's 
head often they would peer down wonderingly. I 
was unfortunate indeed not to have obtained a good 
photograph of one of these yearlings. Attracted 
by the vision of chicks in one of the nests of its 
own breed that had been practically bared of fern 
fronds and leaves, this youngster perched for an 
