The most beautiful thing I have ever seen in Wellington was a midday picture in a garden on the Brooklyn hills one day this month, and in fact for several days. It was a pair of tui fluttering in the branches of a ngaio tree, and hopping down into close-quarters view, within a few yards of the window where I sat writing. I heard them before I saw them; there was no mistaking that chuckling gurgle, with a touch of the flute in it, “chuk-chuk-choo.” I was back in the bush again, that moment; it seemed too good to be true, the tui's notes in a garden within a mile of the city. But there they were, those lovely birds and a plump, well-rounded pair they were, in their glossy plumage with the parsonbird throat ruffle of white. They had found the town gardens to their taste, that was evident.

The pretty couple foraged a while, perfectly at home, and then whirred over the hedge to the next garden. One or other of them returned every morning, food-scouting; and sometimes before sunrise, we could hear the deep, rich “bong” from the hilltop garden near us that was their favourite haunt. There are eucalyptus trees there, the best things that have ever come out of Australia; and the red-gum especially is a meal-tree for the pretty honey-suckers.