114 Bird-Lore
but is powerless to preserve them from what. in the end, may prove a far more disastrous enemy. To kill the meadow mice which destroy the rigging and sails of his boats, Mr. Cobb has brought cats to the island. As usually happens when these creatures find they can {are better by relying on their own efforts than on their supposed owner‘s care. they have become self-supporting and live largely on the birds of the beach. Whether in the winter the food supply is so diminished that their numbers become correspondingly tlccreaSed remains to be Seen; but, at the best, the exis- tence of this predaceous animal among birds whose young are be at its mercy must be viewed with the utmost concern by every one interested in the preservation of the bird»life of Cobb's Island.
In the Haunts of New Zealand Birds BY CHARLES KEELER
THE good Bishop of Dunedin takes a juSt pride in his extensive gardens. They are located well out of the city confines, occupying
a charming natural gully which has been preserved with all its wealth of native verdure. A stream winds through it; a waterfall splashes down upon strange and beautiful ferns: pittosporum trees reach their tall, slender branches into the light» and in the damp solitude grow lofty tree- lerns, giving the place the aspect of a forest of the Carboniferous period. The Bishop escorted me over his domains, and in his excellent company I first made the acquaintance of a number of the New Zealand birds.
As we strolled through the wealth of tropical»looking foliage. a sprink- ling of sunlight illumined the shadowy glen where a whisper of wind was audible amid the plumed treeaferns and the scraggly boughs of the fuchsia trees. The voices of many birds rang in the solitude—the liquid gurgle of the Bell'bird. the call of the Fan-tail, the plaintive ditty of the Gray Warbler. sweetly mingling with the silver cry of the cascade leaping over the mossy rocks. and the purling of the streamlet between its ferny banks.
The Bellebird is an unassuming vocalist, about the size and build of an ()riole and colored in general an oliveygreen. brightening to a yele lowish on the sides. A dark purple hue sufiuses the head of the male, while the under parts are plumbeous in tone. The female lacks the purple and has a fine line of white on each side of the neck, reaching from the corner of the mouth. The male bird would pause now and again in its active, restless search for insects in the fuchsia bark, to utter its rich, melodious warble which reminded me somewhat of the strain of our western Meadowlark. I also heard a single, bell-like note which, when uttered by a number of singers in concert, had something of the
