A QUESTION OF CHUCKLES

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 76, 24 October 1941, Page 8

A QUESTION OF CHUCKLES

TUI V. AMERICAN WARBLER An American naturalist, who has not heard New Zealand's tui, evidently believes that the world’s best chuckler is a chat, which belongs to the warbler family. “Although this chat is the larg cst of the warblers, he does not warble; he chortles. remarks the American writer. “What a mad medley of whistles, catcalls, gurgles, chuckles, grunts, and mews he gives; then falls suddenly silent, as if to note the effect of his cheerful jargon on the listener! While I have seen the swallow-tailed ' kite perform marvellous aerial I manoeuvres, the chat is a mountebank on a trapeze. Rising from the brushes where he has been giving hi.-, one-man comic opera, he will drop, with wings curiously curved, and with feet extended, appear to catch himself in mid-air, and then sidle downward with the most absurd yet amusing awkwardness. His tumbling lacks grace, >et it is amazing in its careless heed and reckless art. manifesting that seeming abandon which is possible only when there is a complete mastery of self-control. Mere is a stunt flier, dressed for the part; a wild eccentric, the mystery of whose be- ! haviour no bird-lover, however keen, j has quite fathomed. Truly, he is a be- j loved vagabond, and nature's jester j supreme, who exults in producing dog- j gercl verses and in indulging in the i strangest vagaries of behaviour.” “Although the tui is one of the world's j best chanters, he is also a delightful j chuckler,” comments a member of the Forest and Bird Protection Society. “He ' can also mimic the noble chimes of the j | bell-bird and the spitting of a cat. This j beautiful bird has indeed a wonderful I range of notes. In old times Maori! j chiefs taught the tui to speak some! i words of their melodious language, but j I don’t know whether anybody has ! j managed to induce a tui to talk Eng- | lish.”