cleared. Strong boots with nails in the soles, to help us to keep
on our feet up the steep clay hill-sides, and a stout stick,
completed our equipment; perhaps we were not very smart, but we
looked like going at all events. I can answer for myself that I
enjoyed every moment of that long Midsummer holiday most intensely,
though I fear I must have wearied our dear, charming host, by my
incessant questions about the names of the trees and shrubs, and of
the habits and ways of the thousands of birds. It was all so new
and so delightful to me,--the green gloom, the hoarse croak of the
ka-ka, as it alighted almost at our feet and prepared, quite
careless of our vicinity, to tear up the loose soil at the root of a
tall tree, in search of grubs. It is a species of parrot, but with
very dingy reddish-brown plumage, only slightly enlivened by a few,
scarlet feathers in the wing. The air was gay with bright green
parroquets flitting about, very mischievous they are, I am told,
taking large tithe of the fruit, especially of the cherries. Every
now and then we stood, by common consent, silent and almost
breathless to listen to the Bell-bird, a dingy little fellow, nearly
as large as a thrush with the plumage of a chaffinch, but with such
a note!--how can I make you hear its wild, sweet, plaintive tone, as
a little girl of the party said, "just as if it had a bell in its
throat;" but indeed it would require a whole peal of silver bells to
ring such an exquisite chime. Then we crept softly up to a low
branch, to have a good look at the Tui, or Parson-bird, most
respectable and clerical-looking in its glossy black suit, with a
singularly trim and dapper air, and white wattles of very slender
feathers--indeed they are as fine as hair-curled coquettishly at
each side of his throat, exactly like bands. All the birds were
quite tame, and, instead of avoiding us, seemed inclined to examine
us minutely. Many of them have English names, which I found very