Fulton. — The Long-tailed Cuckoo. 119" 



ground ; or one, at any rate, in which the young can attain to 

 a fairly good size before leaving, and can thus reach terra firma 

 without much fear of injury. In Mr. Smith's case the young 

 Urodynamis at a fortnight quite filled the nest, and at three 

 weeks was well plumaged, but only able to move about weakly 

 on its legs ; it does not seem to have made any attempt to fly, 

 but was still a huge helpless creature. This bears out what I 

 before said as to the unsuitability of the nest of the Warbler 

 as a habitation for this Cuckoo ; and the fact that no one has 

 ever found the young bird in such a nest makes it probable 

 that the deposition of the egg of the Long-tailed Cuckoo in 

 the nest of the Grey Warbler is of very rare occurrence. The 

 picture in BuUer's book showing the feeding of the young 

 Cuckoo by the Warbler is, however, an accurate representa- 

 tion of what often takes place ; the helpless youngster crawls 

 from the nest to the ground or large tree-trunk, and on the 

 ground or trunk do the various kind-hearted little insectivores 

 feed it. I wish some of our Australian ornithologists would 

 refer to the young of the Fantail Cuckoo, and give us details 

 of their upbringing in the tiny little nests of the Acanthiza. 

 Do many of these birds perish for the reasons I have men- 

 tioned ? How soon do they leave the nests ? and have many 

 instances occurred of the actual discovery of the young Cuckoo 

 in one of these nests? The eggs are deposited therem, but 

 are they hatched, and, if so, what is the ultimate result ? 

 Does the Cuckoo throw out its mates ? How does it get out 

 of the nest, and when ? How long can the nest support its 

 weight ? In searching for the egg and young of Urodynamis 

 taitensis I have paid special attention to the nests of three 

 birds — the Native Canary {Orthonyx ochrocephala) , the 

 Eobin {Myiovioira alhifrons), and the Tomtit (Myiomoira 

 macrocephala). Sir Walter BuUer says that a Maori at 

 Wellington told him that the Blue Crow {Glaucopis cinerca) 

 lays a single egg, and after hatching it leaves the care of the 

 chick to the Popokatea, or Canary [Orthonyx albicilla) (21). 

 Sir Walter could not accept so strange a fact in natural his- 

 tory, and later contributions by the same writer(22) and 

 others quite dispose of the idea that the Blue Crow is ever 

 parasitic(23). It occurred to me that the Maori had very 

 probably mistaken the young unfledged Kohoperoa for the 

 young of the Blue Crow, and that it was the former bird that 

 the Canary had been seen feeding. i\ll nests of the South 

 Island Canary {Orthonyx ochrociphala) , however, which I have 

 personally examined have shown the natural occupants, and 

 no sign of an intruder ; but my surmise proves to be the cor- 

 rect one, for Mr. Elsdon Best sends me the following interest- 

 ing information concerning the Cuckoo from the Tuhoe 

 natives: "The Koekoea does not build a nest, but takes 



