Page:Bird-lore Vol 05.djvu/130

 In the Haunts of New Zealand Birds :17

Amid the forests of beech or fagus which clothe the mountains about the head of Lake Wakatipu, I found an entertaining bird company as- sembled. In walking up a gorge to a charmingr mountain lakelet, known as Rere Lake, which nestles amid the beech-clothed mountains. I heard the liquid tones of the Bell-bird, the timorous Hitting of the Gray Warbler, and the lisping call of the South Island iI‘itmouse. Dodging about in the clean foliage of the young beech trees on the margin of the lakelet, was a chunky little bird with a big head. a ﬁne bill. stout legs and a stub tail. It was not over four inches long, and was colored an olive»green on the back and gray on the under parts. The sides and upper tail-coverts were yellowish green, the top of the head was dark brown and the sides of the head were black, with a conspicuous line of white above the eye. I soon recogniZed this odd little wood-elf as the so-called Bush-Wren. although. as a matter of fact, it is not a Wren but an Ant-thrush, which, again. is not a Thrush but a Pitta.-—one of a family of birds quite characteristic of the Australasian region. So much for popular names! When colonists settle in remote parts of the earth, they carry with them the familiar names of places, of birds and of ﬂowers, applying them indiscriminately to the first objects that oﬁer the slightest pretext. Thus it happens that the Robins of New Zealand are really Old World Warblers, the Tomtit belongs in the same family. while the Bush-Wren is a Pitta.

Another interesting bird of the beech forests is the Pied Fantail. A diminutive creature, about the size and build of the Black Fantail, whose acquaintance we made in the Bishop's grove. The Pied Fantail is so lively and tame that the traveler in the most remote wilderness cane not feel lonely in its company. Listen to its high, sqeaky r/um-p.’ «uni/U queepJ—‘varied now and again by a still higher creaky squeak of a song. It is so whole—souled. so frankly unmelodious. so full of vain enthusiasm for unattainable song, that the listener is quite carried away by it. Then, see the little thing Hitting about in the beech foliage, with quick jerks to emphasize its call, the showy tail expanded and erect, and the wings coyly drooping. It is an energetic, hustling, snappy creature, nervous and bristling. A grayish brown-black and pale buffy breast are scarce the colors for so vain and ambitious a mite, but the black and white of the head are as showy as a harlequin's mask, while the long tail is similarly varied. The Fanrails. like other members of the Flyecatcher family. live chieﬂy on such insect prey as they can capture on the wing.

Native birds are by no means abundant in New Zealand. and the traveler must journey far from civilization to discover many species, \Vhile riding horseback over a wild mountain trail in the Routehurn Valley. some miles inland from the head of Lake Wakatipu, I saw, for the ﬁrst and only time. the Yellowehead, popularly known to the colonists as the \Vild