V. The Stitchbird of Little Barrier Island.

Armed with permission to land and with hands further strengthened by introductions to Mr Nelson, the best of all possible caretakers, I and my companion, John Leask, reached Little Barrier Island at daybreak one fine morning in early October. This sanctuary is, I believe, the stump of an old volcanic pile still, after years of quietude, so split and rifted that water a hundred or two feet above sea - level is unobtainable after a few days of drought; its streams, too, flow only during flood.

Where in early times the aboriginal kauri forest has been cleared, manuka and kanuka clothe the hillsides. There are considerable tracts of low-growing woods tangled and roped with lawyer, clematis, and, most delayingly, with twisted growth of maugemange—climbing fern. It, as also the elegant slender tree-fern and others, were page 36 strangers viewed for the first time, but many species well - known elsewhere were undergoing such modification in the warmth of this semi-tropical island that I feel sure another hundred miles northward projection would have necessitated a new nomenclature. Midway between the manuka belts and the damp densely massed dripping thickets of the high tops, lay shaded waterways and winding irregular valleys supporting most noble tarairi and puriri. About the caretaker's house extend a few acres of mixed alien and native grasses. There are a few yards—not more—of naked rock on the very peaks, for even the cliffs of these mist-visited tops are green with moss, filmy ferns, and delicate shrubbery. The unindented, harbourless, repellent shores of the island are piled high with huge smooth boulders. Ship timber and wreckage of small craft strew the beaches, little Barrier Island is, in fact, an ideal sanctuary, sea arid shore alike combining to protect the woods and their inhabitants.

One or two paths leading to the more prominent peaks and following their steepest ridges are barely kept open by the use of an occasional slasher or axe. There are yet vestiges of haulage tracks, along which timber has been dragged by bullocks before the setting apart of the island as a sanctuary. The natural bird roads, however, page break

West Landing At L.B.I.

page break page 37 of the island are its creek beds. Though blocked and barred, these lines of light—of ingress and egress—afford flight paths rather less barricaded with boles, rather less dim with leafage than the surrounding tree-clad, tree-cumbered lands. It is on this precipitous island, wooded from top to bottom, that the Stitchbird survives, a little fellow eight inches long, velvety black, canary yellow, and with a tuft of white feathers on either side of his head.

The first nest of a species, about which no field naturalist facts are available, is always difficult to locate. In our search for the Stitchbird's nest we were ignorant whether perchance it was to be discovered on the ground or high in the air; amongst bunched green twigs of kanuka, often favoured by the Whitehead; in thicker scrub, such as is preferred by the Tui and Bellbird; in deep holes in timber like the Parrakeet; in rifts and chinks like the Rifleman; in hollowed knees and elbows of trees like the Tit; on shaded shelves like the Robin; or—where I have never yet found nests—amongst the astelia clumps perched high on the great limbs of giant trees. Then again in what part of the island did the bird breed: on the tops or near the coast, in the gorges or on the saddles and ridges? Was a particular aspect favoured, as the Stewart Island Kiwi favours the west and north? What page 38 type of forest did the species prefer for building: open puriri and tarairi, mixed scrub, dense groves of tree-ferns, or the woods of the heights fleeced in filmy fern and furred with moss? Did they prefer gloom, or where the sunlight was able to filter through the boles?

We were ignorant even of the date of the breeding season. We could not tell—always a discouraging factor—that we might not be searching for a nest not yet built, or—equally disheartening—for one from which the season's nestlings had already flown. We thus were unable to eliminate any locality, any portion of the forest, any kind of tree; we were unable to concentrate our search. In our wanderings through the woods we could not tell where it was waste of time to wait. Then, again, knowledge of the habits of other species might be worse than useless. When the male Stitchbird was seen for a flash and not again, was the sight of him a mere chance glimpse as of the forest Hawk high overhead, or was it the wisdom of the Kaka, who vacates for hours even the vicinity of its nest? Was the bird's absence, in fact, the best or the worst of signs? When the male was alone, was he still unmated, was the hen sitting, or had he hidden her in some neighbouring thicket? Then in later days, when again and again the bird was seen about the same spot, was his presence indicative of a nest, page break

Bush On L.B.I.

page break page 39 or did he show himself as do the New Zealand Dottrel to beguile us from the true site? Why, for instance, was that mass of high astelia visited? If with such eagerness, why but once? Was the female really sitting there, and did he fear to visit her again? Yet if sitting and he anxious about our presence, why should he call on her at all? She can' be sitting, we argued, or else we should see him carrying food to her. She must be sitting, we argued, and when he disappears it is to call her off and feed her unseen; but if he is feeding her, why is nothing carried in his beak? Why does he fly between two localities? Lastly arises the doubt, but does he really do so—is it not another male?

There were endless contradictions to be reconciled, likelihoods to be interpreted, improbabilities to be solved. There were opportunities of error in every foot of every yard of the ten thousand acres contained in the island. In the earlier weeks of our search before we had localised mated cock and hen, every Stitchbird movement was a flash amongst solid steadfast boles or a dive into seas of greenery. As lovers revolve a glance or word, such clues as we possessed could by constant cogitation be made luminous as we inclined or darkly dim. For my part I anticipated we should eventually discover the nests in clumps of astelia, my companion that we should obtain page 40 them in situations not very different from those affected by the Robin or Pied Tit. Both of us were wrong; nor in truth did the habits and customs of the Stitchbird quickly enlighten us, for to the species in general the lines might fitly be applied—“everything by turns and nothing long”—“not one but all bird-kind's epitome.”

We were fortunate in locating the species. We began well, for Mr Nelson was able to show us birds the first day. Then for several weeks we learnt almost nothing more; no new discovery was made. We could find not the sign of an old nest; we failed to note the building of a new one. Even when at last, after nearly a month's search, a hen bird was seen with a bulky pinch of tree-fern hair in her bill, that single fatal fact—the one and only nest-building episode I have to chronicle—misled us into waste of days, or rather, since that is impossible in a New Zealand forest, busied us with nine days' fruitless search. She never reappeared; the problem to the end remained unsolved. Every bit of ground was inspected, every tree explored. Either some accident had occurred to the bird, or, since the material carried is everywhere plentiful, this hen for some unaccountable reason was unnecessarily carrying it from a considerable distance to her nest.

Later in the year, especially in the vicinity of nests, we noticed a curious duality running through page break

Sittchbird.

page break page 41 the actions of the Stitchbird. It was never possible, for instance, to predict the posture to be assumed. In attempting photography it was never possible to foretell an attitude. Without apparent rhyme or reason for the change, I have seen the male during one visit glide into the nest as if fulfilling a guilty assignation; at the next, scale the twisted lianes with simian activity, emitting with the last upward leap just such a “sptt”—just such a triumphant shout as an athlete might utter in performance of a strenuous feat of strength. The birds, both cock and hen, will sometimes leave the nest with speed the eye can hardly follow, as if shot forth from the dark like shells. I have seen them equally often wait without haste on the lip of the hole, with plumage compressed and smooth. Sometimes they will dive with extraordinary celerity from a height straight into the dark interior of the tree, and sometimes leisurely perch and inspect the passage inwards to the nest. In approach, as the mood takes them, the birds will hesitate and loiter on the way, or proceed with business-like despatch. Sometimes the nest is reached in perfect silence; at other times approach is heralded with the usual “p-s-tt” from time to time repeated. In the forest, too, and far from nest, the Stitchbird will one day appear to hide and shun observance; on another be indifferent; on a page 42 third, perch and watch within a few feet. By modulations of his call the hen will be ordered into covert, yet within an hour, perhaps on the same spot, will be brought forward for fullest exhibition. Sometimes, if happened on suddenly—if indeed it is possible for such a clumsy stumbling brute as man ever to surprise a forest creature,—he will ruffle his feathers to thrice his size, appearing the very picture of sullen sulkiness. At other times the birds will remain smooth, unconscious, careless. Sometimes the male will loiter through the woodland ways; at others pass like an arrow up the boulder-blocked burns that largely serve as avian thoroughfares. Sometimes he will travel by the tree-tops high in air; at other times by the forest floor. Although one of the most active and mercurial of birds, he can and does—though not often—remain for seconds motionless like a statue, deeply meditative, glowering into space as Fantails sometimes glower.

Owing to the wealth of greenery on this warm island, it was a hard task to keep our eyes on particular birds for any length of time. That was the prime difficulty, for the Stitchbird, though not indeed so friendly and curious as the Robin, is not in any degree a furtive, far less a timid breed. Different individuals of the species and different pairs, male and female, have again and again during our three months on the island page break

Stitchbird.

page break page 43 perched and watched us within a few feet. Often a Bellbird and sometimes a Tui will indulge in a fit of wondering and peering—an active curiosity at close quarters,—but not for a longer period or with more dispassionate detachment than a Stitchbird. Whilst, however, there was no difficulty in seeing the birds on the not very frequent occasions when they chose to allow themselves to be viewed, there was great difficulty in following their journeys for more than a few feet. Day by day passed with mere momentary appearances, disconcerting glimpses intercepted instantly by boles and boughs and shifting greenery. The flutter to earth of the hen direct from a high tree-top is a marvel to watch, a flutter as rapid as the fall of a stone—really doubtless a series of zigzags performed at so prodigious a speed that the human eye cannot detect more than a blurr of rapid movement. The birds can mount lianes like monkeys scaling a rope. They can move through open scrub quick as light with the hopping run of the Crow or Saddleback. They can hover like great bees or humming-birds in front of blossoms. With sunlight falling full on the splendid rich gold of the outspread wings, on the deep blacks and pure whites of head and neck, the male then appears not a bird but a huge brilliant tropical butterfly—a magnificent creature indeed. It was curious to note the indifference of the page 44 birds, when collecting nectar in October from the long waxy bells of the alseuosmia macrophylla, as to whether they stood on head or heels. Landing always on the frail outermost tips of the favoured shrub, bird, blossom, and green leaves seemed intermixed beyond hope of disentanglement. When feeding on this abundant scrub, the approach of the birds—never the birds themselves—could be detected far away, the sudden shaking of the still greenery showing distinct in the calm of unruffled leafage, as the rises of a single trout in a glassy pool.

A yet additional liveliness is lent to the habits of the Stitchbird by the motion—perpetual motion it may be termed—of the tail. Truly, that unruly member is never still. Only during flight is it carried in the normal position—at the trail; other times it stands erected or semi-erected, the angle of inclination reflecting pretty accurately the amount of energy put forth in the previous move. It seems to be a sort of automatic air-brake to facilitate rapid haltings and endless instantaneous changes of posture. The Stitchbird has borrowed the Tui's lightening cleavage of the air, the Bell-bird's dual flight when a pair fly, one exactly equidistant above the other, through labyrinthine intricacies of bole and bough, the Fantail's advance along a level branch, at each rapid hop jerking round so that where head was is tail, page break

Stitchbird.

page break page 45 and where tail was is head, the Robin's acrobatic stickfast stance glued at right angles to mossy trunk or swinging liane, the Rifleman's quick clinging run. Varieties of pose are to be found in every species, but not elsewhere such endless posturings, such infinite variety of attitudes as characterise the Stitchbird. Two of these are particularly remarkable: one, when the bird dancing along its bough stands momentarily steadfast, leaning forward stretched to full height, like an actress with hands and arms and body swayed forward in a superb gesture that claims the plaudits of her audience; another, comically recalling the action of a Maori orator pacing with quick little steps this way and that, gesticulating first to right and then to left. The hen is less active, I think, than her volatile mate. It is her pleasure, in her comings and goings near the nest, often for long periods to wear her wings drooped like a brooding hen.

The breed is guileless and innocent of wile in a peculiar degree; the instinct of deception even in a good cause seems not to enter into their scheme of things. At any rate, approach and besiegement of the nest by man and camera does not disturb their tranquil faith that all is for the best in the best possible world. Neither anger nor fear is evinced. They are careless, too, of stranger birds who may happen to have wandered page 46 near the family abode. Indeed, the sole hint of hostility towards intruders ever noted was shown, not by the owner of the nest himself but by a friend—another male—on his behalf. Leask and myself on this occasion, whilst not quite assured of our find, were, in ten-minute spells, intently watching a certain ambiguous hole. He had just sung out, “Male flown out,” when another male from whom I had never taken my eyes, and indeed whom I had suspected to be the owner of the nest, flew straight at me, passing on a level skimming flight a couple of feet only above my head, with much of the minatory mien assumed by a hen Morepork attempting to intimidate. Perhaps I should not have been so sure of the hostility of the action had not something of the same sort happened a second time, on the part once again not of the owner and the occupier himself but of an officious friend. I have no theory to offer as to what was meant, but merely state the fact that it did again occur whilst Leask and I were closely watching another nest in another part of the island. Both before and during the breeding season the males of the race appear to dwell on very friendly terms with one another; indeed, one of the many preliminary inexplicabilities of Little Barrier was their habit of visiting one another. These meetings, which would take place within feet of a page break

Stitchbird(M)

page break page 47 spot which we then suspected, and which we afterwards discovered to be a nesting site, were a source of sore discouragement until we became used to them. In October and early November, whilst still engaged in the search for nests, it was disheartening work, after believing we had tracked a male to his lair, to find two males engaged in parley—long, low, chattering, very friendly palavers. It seemed then so improbable that one male would tolerate the presence of another close to his breeding quarters. Seemingly, however, they are mere friendly calls such as the Yellow-fronted Parakeet has to endure during nesting-time from members of its own race and from its Bed-fronted relative. I have reason to believe, however, that although thus friendly, care is taken not to intrude on one another's domains.

In its relation to other breeds, the characteristic of the race is a certain self-centred contentment; for instance, I cannot recollect an instance of either male or female chasing Pied Tit or Whitehead or Grey Warbler or Fantail, all lesser birds than they themselves. That these small fry are already sufficiently punished in not having been born in the purple, in not having chipped the shell as Stitchbirds, seems to be the line of thought. Though units of birds differ as do individuals of the human family, a fairly accurate estimate of the qualities of a race can page 48 nevertheless be formed after prolonged arm's-length intimate acquaintance. Nobody who has watched the details of Pukeko housekeeping can have failed to appreciate the social kindliness of the breed, or at equally close quarters to admire the honest enduring hatred towards strangers evinced by the Caspian Tern, or to note the cold-heartedness of the Pied Cormorant, or the humble-minded meekness of the Saddleback, or the wickedness of the Harrier, or the cantankerousness of the Kingfisher. Although, as I say, individual birds differ like individual men, yet each species has some trait or another that may be fairly termed characteristic.

Thus it may be that a certain levity in courtship marks the male of the Stitchbird clan. After an episode I was unfortunate enough to witness—one of those revelations which hurt the observer by tarnishing his ideal,—I could not but ascribe sad insincerity to all the cocks. For a long time I had been watching one particular bird: he was such a splendid specimen, and I did so believe the metal must be worthy of the mould—I suppose I had idealised him, and then—well, he committed a shabby action, one, alas! which I could not forget. The serenity of the hour was gone. I experienced a sort of uneasiness, a sort of guiltiness in his presence—I knew something of him that he did not know I knew. I feared, page 49 too, that at any moment he might again further compromise himself in my presence. Why, why could he not have taken a ripe berry and allowed me to nourish my enthusiasm? It was in vain I told myself that he might be a good family man, that he might perform his strict duty towards his consort. Even whilst I said it I was aware of the “little more and how much it is,” of the high devotion and punctilious chivalry that were wanting. He cannot have deeply cared for his mate, or why—it was my unfortunate lot to see everything—did he select as a courting gift not the very best and ripest of berries from the coprosma branch visited? I examined it. I counted the berries—there was but one missing, the green one I had seen in his bill—not, not the ripest of the lot already of a pale pink. It may seem a small matter; he may even have foreseen the hen would reject the offering. Still it was a gift, and should have been the best his means could afford; besides—remember I saw everything—there was a cavalierly carelessness in its selection, as if any berry would do. The choice of it, too, was made in unbecoming haste, perfunctorily, not at all after the fashion a lover should choose a gift for his fair. Worst of all—and the possibility, nay, the probability (for we know what men are) could not be driven from my mind,—had he not with every appearance of tenderness, page 50 with oaths and solemn vows, sworn it was the best in the whole forest, and imploringly apologised for its immaturity? As a matter of fact, that was the only act of courtship witnessed, whatever endearments may have passed in the thickets. Once only also did I see anything carried to a sitting hen—the solitary morsel appearing to be a small grub of some sort. Stitchbirds live, in fact, almost entirely on nectar. The hen whilst sitting is probably fed on it alone, either leaving the nest or being called oil the nest at about hourly intervals for that purpose. The nestlings were reared on the same ethereal food; the male himself almost exclusively lived on it, the only solid food—if indeed it could be termed solid—that passed his bill being “cuckoo spit,” the frothy excretion concealing a small insect, thick at Tutira and elsewhere in certain seasons on the leaves of the rangiora, and on Little Barrier on the leaves of other shrubs. Both insect and spittle were devoured—the original inducement to taste this unpleasant - looking creature perhaps being lack of moisture on the heights of the riven island.

A yet unsolved problem of Little Barrier is that of certain birds seen on three occasions by me in October—on two of these occasions, moreover, watched in the open within a few feet. In the little clearing I had made they were as close to page 51 me as if they had been caged. Whilst moving about the underwood in several small parties, sucking the nectar from the flowers of the alseuosmia, they uttered at frequent intervals what appeared to me to be their travel call, “stit,” “stit,” “stit.” In November and December I heard them less frequently, and saw but one bird. I never heard them calling high on the trees. Without capture and handling, their plumage seemed to be practically that of small hen Stitchbirds with colour contrasts dull. Some of them showed a thin yellow line about the mouth. They could not have been immature Bellbirds; they did not seem quite to be Stitchbirds. If, on the other hand, an unnamed species, why in three months' watching in the woods did we never meet a mated pair? Why, in the later part of the breeding season, did such as were heard appear to be still solitary? Leask, an excellent observer, most cautious, moreover, in his judgments, never happened to come across them in parties, and was inclined to believe they must be Bellbirds. Perhaps. If, however, they were Bellbirds, their habits of flight and call were unlike any Bellbirds seen elsewhere in New Zealand—in fact, they weren't Bellbirds. To me they seemed to bear the same relationship to the Stitchbird as do the “brownies” of Kotiwhenu to the Saddleback.

Although in October almost everywhere “sphiting” and “sttiching” could be heard throughout the bush, a wider experience led us to suspect that Stitchbirds were not so plentiful as at first surmised. A comparatively small number of individuals appearing and reappearing, like an army on the stage, would make a great show. Perchance, too, the remarkable powers of ventriloquism 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,” “ptt,” and “whystt”—all of them containing a certain far-off resemblance to the English syllable “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 page 53 the bird itself; they were poured forth on both occasions perhaps for thirty seconds under the stimulus apparently of surprise or surprised anxiety, though, of course, no faintest trace was perceptible to the human ear of either emotion; the possibility indeed of surprise and anxiety has been suggested only for the reason that I myself as a human might have been subject under like circumstances to like emotions. One of these songs was uttered when for the first time the male discovered his entrance hole temporarily blocked by a turf of matted fern fibre. After thorough inspection of this miraculous sudden dark blockade, he fluttered rapidly down to near the base of a neighbouring tree, and there gave vent to what I have surmised might be astonishment and anxiety. A like song was called forth under somewhat similar circumstances when the male, returning, found the hen not on her eggs as he had evidently anticipated. Inadvertently I had baulked her return. She had remained away not for the usual five or seven minutes, but for two hours and fifty minutes. It was after scrutiny of the empty nest for half a minute that he poured forth the low sweet song recorded. He then gave a “sptt “or two, not, however, particularly loud, nor as if under mortal apprehension as to the fate of the eggs, and flew away. I believe I often feel more anxiety as to the fate of the eggs and nests page 54 than the birds themselves. At any rate, during that two hours and fifty minutes I was the prey of remorse, compunction, and fear in no common degree, whilst the heedless Stitchbirds were disporting themselves in the woods. This it is to have a feeling heart. At funerals I always suffer more than the nearest and dearest of the deceased; I weep more bitterly.

As the season advanced there seemed a slightly marked movement of the species towards the ocean. Pairs, for instance, were to be met with nearer the coast in localities where they had neither been seen nor heard before. There was something of a similar movement from the ridge-caps towards the gullies. Broadly speaking, the great bulk of the birds during the height of the breeding season were to be found in the depths of the steep open valleys, the central belt of the island.

Four nests we were sure of, whilst the site of a fifth, known to myself only, was located to within a limb or so. Of these five, three were built thirty to sixty feet from the ground in huge puriri; the fourth in an immense taraire, also about fifty feet from the ground; the fifth—the Stitchbird is nothing if not varium et mutabile—was at a lower elevation, and in a smaller tree—a tawa. Four of the nest sites were in valleys, the fifth on a ridge. With these nests, as is always the case in dealing with species whose habits and page break

Stitchbird (F.).

page break page 55 manners are still unknown, we dared not in any way take liberties. An only nest cannot be visited often or besieged long without dread of causing desertion; then again with but one in hand anxiety is never absent in regard to vermin. Personally, I never feel happy unless at least three nests of a rare breed are under observation—if one then should chance to be destroyed, others remain. Risk from rats and cats is perennial and unavoidable, but vermin seem to be further attracted by signs of human traffic. Again and again valuable nests have been lost to us in spite of scrupulous care, in spite of meals eaten far from the nest, in spite of the destruction by fire of every crumb and every scrap of paper.

Of the three nests most closely watched, two had stages built in front of them, from which we were able to note Stitchbirds' use and wont at the distance of a few feet. Our first was discovered on a Sunday afternoon late in November.¹

For some time previously we had become aware page 56 of the consistent flying of a male up and down a certain reach of one of the dry stream-beds. For nearly ten hours that day we watched this particular Stitchbird, literally tracking him to his lair, cutting at intervals narrow ridges at right angles to his route, marking him pass and repass, and then repeating the process. At length, when early gloom was beginning to darken the forest, we found to our delight we had headed his line of flight, that he had turned inward to a lesser valley. Finally, Leask marked him for an instant mount to the rim of a cavity in a puriri limb. Shortly afterwards the bird was seen by both of us actually to enter the hole. Even then, however, so long had disappointment dogged our steps, and so accustomed had we become to the vagaries of the species, that we stumbled homewards in the gathering darkness not yet altogether certain of our find. Next morning doubt was dispelled; we had discovered the nest sought for so long. It was located about twenty feet from the forest floor, an arm's-length into a puriri limb, which had in former years been smashed by the fall of a neighbouring tree. The scar had healed, leaving a raised lip—a porch—of green bark, which perfectly protected the crevice from rain and soakage. Immediately overhead on another dead but sound limb rested a mass of astelia, which served as further shelter from sun page break

Stitchbird And Nesting Hole.

page break page 57 and rain. Lianes of various sorts hung from above—convenient ladders by which the birds could drop or could mount like agile monkeys with erected tails. The orifice almost immediately narrowed, so that a man's hand and arm could not be inserted without artificial widening of the hole, yet it was into this narrow dark tube that the birds could dive from above with tight-shut wings or emerge into the open with the velocity of bullets—doubtless their long cat-like whiskers help them in these remarkable feats. Guarded thus by a bulwark of the toughest timber in New Zealand, and safely concealed within the heart of a living tree, the nest was built. Its foundation was composed of sticks, some of which measured over nine inches in length, and were of the girth of twigs that Shags might have used. On this substantial base was placed a superstructure of coarse rootlets, manipulated to the desired semicircular shape, then finer rootlets interwoven and intermixed with a very few small Robin feathers; lastly, the five pure white, shining, glossy, luminous, elegantly pear-shaped eggs were laid on an unmixed bed of brown tree-fern scale. Late in December this nest was found to be deserted, remnants of three eggs lying below the orifice. In the nest itself two remained, one incubated almost to chipping point, the other addled. On the lip of the hole was a tell-tale scatter page 58 of breast feathers; probably a rat had done the deed.

The second nest was in a tawa-tree overhanging a thirty-feet precipitous bank. Its entrance also was guarded by two folds of raised bark, lips that served to turn aside rain and wet. Three feet within the cavity in an upward slanting direction was placed the nest, which when examined proved to contain four young birds, their quills about a quarter or fifth grown. They looked as if when fit to fly the plumage of all of them would resemble that of the female parent. There was also one pure white, luminous, pear-shaped egg, which seemed to have slipped out of the nest and lodged in the stick foundation. That undamaged egg and those already described measured slightly under an inch in length. The foundations of this nest also consisted of sticks, one of which was between nine and ten inches in length and of an extraordinary thickness, weight, and awkwardness to have been lifted and placed in such a position. Both in this hole and in the other one examined, there were several distinct strata of stick, as if the foundation as required had from time to time been renovated and rehabilitated, one layer, I remember, showing a certain kind of mould that does not immediately clothe rotting twigs. On the top of them, as in the case of the first discovered nest, lay coarse rootlets, then page break

Stitchbird Nesting Hole.

page break page 59 finer rootlets, interwoven with tree-fern scale, together with a small number of small feathers, and lastly, scale alone. Immediately beneath the stick foundation of this second nest the rooty humus was saturated with moisture. It was clean wet, however, without a trace of voided matter. Droppings noticed on the edge of the nest were contained in the usual sacs, which were doubtless swallowed by the old birds. Certainly they were not carried out in the bill. Indeed, on no single occasion during several weeks' watch was anything visibly carried in or out. Apparently the nestlings were fed entirely on nectar. Often after emergence from the nest the tongue of the parent bird was darted forth as if to cleanse the horn of the bill. Sometimes, too, I have thought I observed dribblings of a pure liquid fall from the bill, though it may have been gleamings and glancings of light reflected from the plumage of the restless birds. Often, at any rate, the bill is wiped on a bough or liane as if to get rid of stickiness. The small feathers also immediately beneath the throat seemed to be run together as if glued or gummed by some sticky substance. Droppings voided by the old birds in the vicinity of the nest were clear liquid. If the birds were agitated by any novel proceeding on our part, uneasiness produced on them the effect known to be caused by that emotion in other animals—evacuations page 60 became more frequent. The third nest was placed some fifty or sixty feet high in the rifted branch of a giant puriri. The fourth, built in a hole in a splendid taraire, was also fifty or sixty feet above the ground. We were, however, so fully occupied with the more attainable nests that little was seen of these, and nothing noted worth repetition.

Whilst the hen sits, the nesting hole is not often visited by the male. When that does happen he will look in for a fraction of a second, raising himself from below until his head is level with the hole; then having fed her he will disappear. Incubation is undertaken altogether by the hen. I watched a nest for nine hours one day and for ten hours another day, and found that she left the eggs at intervals averaging almost exactly sixty minutes. Immediately after vacation of the nest cavity she relieved herself, the droppings then being solid and relatively large, as those of sitting birds are apt to be. She then vanished into the bush, probably being fed by her mate at some considerable distance from the nest. He also appeared to be in the vicinity—galumphing as he came—every three or four hours. The hen never remained away for more than three or four minutes.

Both parents attend their young, both carrying page 61 in food, and both, doubtless assisting in the sanitation of the nest. Usually one bird enters about the time the other leaves. Sometimes both are away together; sometimes both are in the hole simultaneously. When that happens, when the female is within, her presence can always be inferred from the diffident hesitancy of the male when about to enter. Of the two parents the hen is the more anxious and careful.

During ten weeks' sojourn on the island, except on three occasions no indication whatever was afforded of courtship, of nesting, or of the rearing of the young. These three occasions the reader will remember were firstly, the hen seen to be carrying a billful of tree-fern scale; secondly, the proffer to the hen of a berry; and thirdly, the carriage of a small grub or caterpillar. The nests of most birds carefully watched can be located by activity in conveyance of building material. The Stitchbird gives no such clue; one nest serves for years, the site of the nest for scores of years, perhaps for centuries, for who can tell the permanence of a rift or a chink in a giant puriri? The nest year by year is merely repaired and renovated—renovated, moreover, with material procurable from every yard of the island. At a later period again no clue is given. Nests of most species can be found by food supplies page 62 visible in the parents' bills. The young of the Stitchbird appear to be fed entirely on nectar. Lastly, a big proportion of the nests are placed almost beyond eyeshot. Their discovery, therefore, is no easy matter. We were fortunate perhaps in the finding of the five.