258 Transactions. — Zoology. 



landed that it allowed him to pick it up in his hands, although 

 under ordinary circumstances it is a very shy bird. Also, 

 Dr. E. P. Eamsay has in his collection a specimen which was 

 taken at sea between New Zealand and Lord Howe Island. 



Outside of New Zealand we have little information. The 

 species is found in Norfolk Island, where it also breeds, but 

 elsewhere it has only been obtained at Cape York, in North 

 Queensland, where it is very rare; and it is probable that its 

 winter home is in New Guinea. 



Mr. E. L. Layard said that it occurred in New Caledonia, 

 "but according to the authorities of the British Museum his 

 specimens belong to the allied species G. plagosus, which 

 migrates from north to south in Australia, but does not come 

 to New Zealand. 



The long-tailed cuckoo (Urodynamis taitensis) arrives in 

 Ne# Zealand at the end of October or beginning of November, 

 and leaves in January or February, but its movements are not 

 so easily traced as those of the shining cuckoo, for it is gene- 

 rally silent in the day-time. As in the last case, the young 

 birds linger longer than their parents, and are occasionally 

 •seen as late as the first; week in April. These birds retain 

 their young spotted plumage much longer than the young of 

 the shining cuckoo, but no specimen showing the change into 

 that of the adult has as yet been shot in New Zealand, and 

 neither old nor young have been recorded from the Chatham 

 Islands. 



Mr. E. L. Layard says that this bird is very rare in New 

 Caledonia. He only obtained four specimens, all of which 

 were purchased in the streets. The first was on the 23rd 

 March, 1879, the second on 15th March, 1881, and the other 

 two on 15th April, 1881. * As these birds were in their 

 immature plumage, he thinks that they were born in the 

 island. 



Through the kindness of His Excellency Sir G. O'Brien, 

 Governor of Fiji, I have received from Mr. C. W. Woodford, 

 Resident Commissioner of the British Solomon Islands, a 

 letter in which he says that he obtained immature males of 

 the long-tailed cuckoo in April and May, 1887, and that he 

 has seen the bird several times in the Solomon Islands during 

 the last three years, the last time being in May, 1900. He is 

 of opinion that the bird is a migrant, but cannot say so posi- 

 tively. He also, like Mr. Layard, thinks that the birds must 

 have been born on the islands in which they were found. But 

 the hypothesis that the young birds leave New Zealand early 

 in March, and, passing through New Caledonia, reach the 

 Solomon Islands early in April, would fit the facts very well. 



* Ibis, 1882, p. 523. 



