Go to National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa
Volume 26, 1893
Previous Article | Table of Contents | Next Article
– 638 –

Ornithology.

I would remark, with reference to ornithology, that in the early spring of three successive years—1888–89–90—Limestone Island, in Whangarei Harbour, was visited by a pair of small birds which I think I have identified as Ptilotis chrysops, or the yellow-faced honey-eater, described in Gould's “Birds of Australia,” vol. i, pp. 521, 522. The birds sang very sweetly for a week or two each year in a large willow-tree close to the house in which I was living, and seemed to have the intention of building there; but I fancy they were deterred from doing so by the disturbance caused by a swing which hung from a limb of the tree. The shaking of the tree caused by the swing, and the laughter and merriment of the swinging children, probably scared them away. My ornithological instincts were not acute enough to harden my heart and induce me either to taboo the swing or to shoot the birds, so that I cannot be perfectly certain as to the identification; but, as I observed these birds carefully with binoculars, I have little doubt that they were a pair of this rather common honey-eater of New South Wales, which for some reason migrated to New Zealand to

– 639 –

nest, and may therefore be classed with the cuckoos and other migratory birds which visit our shores. The song is so sweet and soft that it is utterly unlike that of any of the native New Zealand birds; it resembles that of the garden warbler of England, which I used to hear in Surrey and Hampshire every spring.

Ptilotis chrysops, Yellow-faced Honey-eater. (“The Birds of Australia,” Gould, vol. i., pp. 521, 522.)

Crown of the head, back of the neck, all the upper surface, wings, and tail, dark-brown with a slight tinge of olive; throat and undersurface dark greyish-brown, the latter colour predominating on the chest; a fine line of black runs from the nostrils through the eye; this black line is bounded below by a stripe of yellow, which runs under the eye and over the earcovert, and below this runs another parallel line of black, which commences at the base of the lower mandibles and extends beyond the line of the ear-coverts; immediately above the eye behind is a small spot of yellow, and behind the earcoverts a like spot of white; bill blackish-brown; irides and eyelash dark-brown; legs leaden-brown.

Female like male, except that it is smaller.

Very common in New South Wales. Sprightly in habit, and sings sweetly.

Previous Article | Table of Contents | Next Article