THE TUI

Hokitika Guardian, 12 September 1921, Page 3

THE TUI

(By J. Drummond. F.L.S., F.Z.S., in “Lyttelton Times.") The toi sometimes seems to find difficulties in producing the sweet notes that are one cf its greatest at l riel ions. It limy lie seen sitting high up oil a loftv tree, obviously straining to Gng, but it brings forth only strange, hoarse guttural sounds, which contrast with the notes that, usually follow. In a manuka grove on a Canterbury hillside. a song thrush was seen tu alight on the top of a tree about twenty feet high, and was heard to sing the wonderful song, full of variations, which li.is made that songster famous. His ftn.-il raptures hardly had died away when a tui appeared suddenly on another tno-top. some ten yards oil. It began to cough and wheeze, with outstretched neck, and then poured forth the silvery notes sweetly and purely, repeating them, apparently for the benefit of its rival. A similar experience with the. tui fell to the lot of Miss S. Dunn, toaeliev in the AYhangarei Heads School, when she was walking to school on the nioriling of August 22. “1 heard a sound—,i familiar one and recognised the notes of a tui." she writes. “But it was so strange! He seemed to be just learning his song, t watched him for some time. I am sure lie was trying hard to bring out his notes, as his neck ! was stretched out .in all directions, hut the only notes lie made might have been mistaken lor those of a pintail. Koine of them were just little !wittering notes. I have heard the songtliru,sh utter tho same kind of notes. That tui did not utter ally of L'.e usual clear, hell-liko notes; all ol them were hoarse notes, and they demanded an effort—a great effort —on his part ’’ “Now for the shining cuckoo," Miss Dunn adds. "I have watched its arrival for three or four years. In October last I watched one very closely. Tt settled in a tea-tree close to a n"v< r hank in AVaiinamaku. For three years consecutively a cuckoo has been seen in the same place. Can it he the same one? Tt took fully a month to learn the first part of its song, that sweet