THE BELL BIRDS' CHIMES
(To the Editor.) Sir,—l noticed in the amusement columns of your paper recently a quotation from a song in which reference is made to the bell-bird (the New Zealand mako mako). It read thuß: ■Way out yonder in the Long Whito Cloud, Tho land for which we yearn, Where the wind broathes halm by the
nikau palm, And the bell-bird chimes in the fern. Well, I don't know who the composer of these precious lines is, but he certainly is no New Zealander, or, if so, is lamentably ignorant of the habits of our most beautiful native songster. He appears to have got stuck for a word to rhyme with "yearn,' and without considering what nonsense he was writing, seized on "fern' as the only one wliich would suitably answer that purpose. If the song should happen to become at all popular, it will tend to give a very wrong impression of the habitat of tho bird referred to. The mako niako is usually seen in the shrubs and smaller trees which grow on the outskirts of the forest. It is there thov get most of their food, which consists"of honey gathered from flowers, small berries, etc. Ho is not a fern bird.—l am, etc., OLD COLONIAL.
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Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3031, 19 March 1917, Page 6
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211THE BELL BIRDS' CHIMES Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3031, 19 March 1917, Page 6
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