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The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 6, Issue 7 (February 1, 1932.)

(Bird-Song and Summer)

(Bird-Song and Summer).

Many a New Zealander has made acquaintance with native birds and their music this summer, despite the ravages of pakeha pests in the bush. Overseas visitors, too, have discovered the richness of our native chimers; for example, an English traveller who heard the tui on Waiheke Island, up in the Hauraki Gulf, pronounced it a sweeter singer than the nightingale. The call of the shining cuckoo, the far-flying pipi-wharauroa, too, has been frequent in every forest and every park and many a garden this summer. There is a peculiar appeal to the Maori ear in the cuckoo's high whistling call, which one cannot mistake for any other bush voice. Many a Maori song has it for its theme. I have just turned up among my bush-lore papers a little song in Maori sent me by the late Hone Heke, M.P. for the Northern Maori, who had a taste for composing and singing waiatas. (Old Parliamentarians will remember the duets of charm with which he and Sir Apirana Ngata used to delight their friends at social gatherings.) This is a translation I have made of a portion of this gladsome ditty from the Ngapuhi country; it begins with the cry of the little messenger of summer as it strikes the Maori ear:

“‘Kui, kui—whitiwhiti ora—Tio-o!’

That cheery piping rings again above me long and clear,

Call of the shining cuckoo, bright herald of the year;

A song of farewell to the old, rejoicing at the new.

‘Shine, shine and live!’ it blithely cries, A song of greeting to the light, a summer-loving cry.

It sends its soul forth with that call, to tree and fern and flower,

Where red glow quiet waters ‘neath the bending pohutukawa.”