THE TUI, OR PaRSON BIRD, OF NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 2320, 18 August 1898, Page 50

THE TUI, OR PaRSON BIRD, OF NEW ZEALAND.

Ifc has taken some hundreds of years for mankind to think out and develop the idea of a clergyman, but Nature anticipates all man's ideas, however original. For hundreds of years the New Zealand bush has swurmed with clergymen — dapper little gentlemen in black coats and white ties. Yes, eie"rgymen, for their suits are not the dress clothes of civilisation. They are, when seen in certain lights, a beautiful glossy dark green, in fact they have seen service and done duty, for their coats have become as green as those of the most benevolent gentleman who Bver cured souls "on £40 a year." The " tui," as he is called by the Maori, or " parBon bird,"' as named by the Briton, is the delightful little comforter and joy of every tennis party or five o'clock tea that is held by the bjrd world of the New Zealand bush.

There he sits, perched in his pulpit at the top of some tree, " shaking his head, bend- J ing to one side and then to another, as if he , remarked to this one and that one, and now ' and again, with pent-up vehemence, con- J trading his muscles and drawing himself to- ( gether, his voice waxes loud in a manner to j .waken sleepers to their senses," as says Sir .Walter Buller. Hu can be taught to speak, to crow like a dog, and to whistle tunes, and at evening he | liter.) lly sings vespers and rings the curfew t bell— ior ins note is then "like the clear, • high note of an organ, and again like the sinking together of hollow metallic rods." | He closes the day with a clear, silvery t " toJl," then retires decently to rest at a suitable hour, and sends all other respectable birdd off to rest also. He is during the day , a most restless, energetic little person, sel- , flcm still for a moment— preaching, singing, ' exhorting, mimicking; he will mimic every bird in the bush to perfection. Then he is such a buffoon ; he will break off in the ( middle of an exqui&itc melody and indulge in the most strange medley of sounds, ; impossible to reproduce and difficult to describe ; but if one can imagine " the combination of a cough, a laugh, and a sneeze, with the, smashing of a pane of glass," that will be ' some approach to the idea. The Maoris)

have a song of 48 lines, each descriptive of a movement of the tui's sonata.

The bird is about the size and shape of a blackbird, but has a pair of delicate tufts of white feathers at his throat, and is a glossy dark green otherwise, looking black in ordinary lights. He is a honey eater, and may be seen hovering at the flowers of a flax plant ov fuchsia tree, which flowers he fertilises. But, alas, the introduction of the bee is fast destroying the tui. On more than one occasion he has been found dead with a bee's sting in his tongue ; as also has the huia, another " beautiful bird," for that is, freely tiansluled, what the word "huia" means. These honey-feeding birds thrust their sensiti /c tongues into the flowers and find the bee there, who promptly attacks the intruder.

The tui seems to be, like other New Zealand birds, unconscious of danger from man ; in fact, it seems as if the colony was never part of the created world at all, any more than Mars or the moon. It is another planet to all intents and purposes, whence all mammals were excluded, except perhaps a chance whale or seal thrown on the shores from the sea. It has been the land of birds and spiders almost exclusively. There were no venomous reptiles till the Horn. sap. arrived in the land ; now there are. When the flax plant seeds the tuis have a

good lime — real May meetings; every flower stalk is besieged by anxious, vivacious little persons, chattering, e?ting, and happy. They put away such quantities of " tea and buns " in their excitement that they get enormously fat, and literally have to " undo th* top button." They are said to peck their breasts to 3et out the skin and make room for the fat. But stop a bit. The tui's mate is as active as himself — she preaches, sings, and performs at penny readings as cleverly and with as much energy as her husband ; in short, she is not only the rector's wife, but she is a Hallelujah Lass as well. Then, again, the tui has a curate — the mocking bird — whose sole ambition in life is to copy his rector and preach his sermons. He does his level best, but never quite succeeds ; he can imitate the tui, and does, up to a certain point, but falls short in the higher walks — ho is only an understudy after all. The tuis nest 'twice or thrice a year, and Lave large families, excellently brought up. There is one thing the tui cannot' endure, and that is scandal. If one of his cloth is wounded or injured the whole fraternity set on him and peck him to death ; you see he must keep up his reputation or an active busy little person. It is sad that all the, New Zealand native birds are becoming so scarce ; Jiey speak to us of a time when Nature was harmless — when the snake, the tigei, and the falcon did not exist. — Hugh L. Mu.chell (Wellington) in Country Life Illustrated.