Fulton. — The Long- tailed Cuckoo. 131 



way assures more thaa ordiaary(41) atteatioa to the remain- 

 ing egg or eggs. This is to my mind purely supposititious, for 

 I can find but few instances of eggs being found on the ground 

 beneath or near nests containing Cuckoo's eggs, and no proof 

 that the Cuckoo herself has performed the eviction. There 

 have, however, since the days of Jenner been numberless 

 instances recorded of the young, blind, helpless, and un- 

 fledged Cuckoo instinctively wriggling under and deliberately 

 striving to hurl, and eventually succeeding in hurling, to 

 destruction the rightful tenants of the nest(42). It is indis- 

 putable that the Shining Cuckoo throws out the young 

 Warblers, and I have myself found them on the ground 

 beneath the nest containing the young intruder ; and that 

 the larger Cuckoo sometimes does the same is also un- 

 doubted(lOO). 



Darwin says that " The offspring of the foster-parents of 

 the European Cuckoo are commonly ejected from the nest 

 within three days after the Cuckoo is hatched, altliough the 

 latter is at this age in a most helpless condition. Trustworthy 

 accounts have been received of the young Cuckoo, while blind 

 and not able to hold up its head, ejecting its own foster- 

 brothers. With respect to the means by which this strange 

 and odious instinct was acquired, if it were of importance for 

 the young Cuckoo to receive as much food as possible soon 

 after birth I can see no difficulty in its having gradually 

 acquired, during successive generations, the blind desire, the 

 strength and structure, necessary for the work of ejection, for 

 those young Cuckoos which had such habits and structure 

 best developed would be th6 most securely reared. The 

 first step towards the proper instinct might have been mere 

 unintentional restlessness on the part of the young bird when 

 somewhat advanced in age and strength, the habit having 

 been afterwards improved and transmitted to an earlier 

 age "(45a). In Mr. Smith's case the young Robins seem to 

 have inherited an instinct that unless they kept to the bottom 

 of the nest the young tyrant above them would speedily bring 

 about their doom. 



I should now like to review what evidence we have as to 

 the migration of the Kohoperoa from the South Seas to 

 these Islands. That it was known to the early colonists to 

 appear annually, and as regularly to disappear, is shown by 

 the startling statement made by the Rev. Mr. Taylor in his 

 book " Te Ika a Maui," for he says, " The Long-tailed Cuckoo 

 m the autumn buries itself in the mud of the river-beds, and 

 there hibernates till the following spring "(46). 



In the Rev. William Yate's " Account of New Zealand," 

 published in 1835, he says, " Tiiis bird, which is remarkable 

 for its long body and short cock's beak, is one of the sweetest 



