394 Transactions. 



you tiirn to Campbell's " Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds " (11), published 

 in 1900, you will find the habitat for Chalcococcyx lucidus extends down 

 the east of Australia to Tasmania and New Zealand. One correspondent 

 who lived for many years in north Taranaki, and knew the bird well, and 

 had, in fact, for years noted the dates of its arrival, writing from Perth, 

 Western Australia, says that " the bird was very common there in Decem- 

 ber, 1908, especially on the Darling Eanges, on the west coast " (12). 



In Australia it is called the " broad-billed bronze cuckoo," to distinguish 

 it from the " narrow-billed " {Chalcococcyx bascdis) and the " bronze '" 

 (C. flagosus). Campbell (13) confines our bird to the habitat mentioned, 

 and does not say that it is considered migratory to the tropical regions ; 

 but when he speaks of C. plagosus, the one most closely allied to our bird, 

 he mentions that it is found in southern New Guinea and the adjacent 

 islands right up to the Solomon Archipelago. The narrow-billed {C. hasalis) 

 has also a range right up to Timor, Java, and Malacca ; so that it is extremely 

 probable, though not yet deteraiined, that our bird (C. lucidus) also comes 

 from some place to the north of Australia, probably New Guinea. It is 

 much more likely that the birds come from a large continent like New 

 Guinea than from some scattered islands in the Pacific ; and the fact that 

 the bird has the Australian range before mentioned entirely disposes of the 

 idea that New Caledonia is its wintering-place. New Caledonia may be a 

 stopping-place, but there is no doubt in my mind that New Guinea Mall be 

 found to be their home, and that the two land-bridges — one down through 

 New Caledonia, Kermadecs, Norfolk Island, to New Zealand and the 

 Chathams ; the other down northern and eastern Australia to Tasmania — 

 satisfactorily account for their presence in Australia and New Zealand. 



It is quite possible that the Australian individuals are stragglers who 

 have been blown a little to the west at the time of starting from New Guinea, 

 have struck the coast of Australia, and have come straight on down Cape 

 York Peninsula, instead of winging their way on towards New Caledonia. 

 It is curious and most interesting that C. plagosus, which does not reach us 

 here, but is very common throughout Australia, is occasionally found in New 

 Caledonia ; and the same' explanation accounts for that. The birds have 

 in that case started off a little too far to the east, have flown on as far as 

 New Caledonia, but, having no land-bridge memory to bring them on to 

 New Zealand, have remained there. The flight from New Guinea to New 

 Caledonia is quite as long as anything they have ever made to Australia, 

 and quite enough to satisfy their migrator}' instinct. Our own birds, how- 

 ever, accustomed to a much longer journey, wing their way right on to our 

 islands, rarely even stopping at New Caledonia. 



I have seen it mentioned somewhere, but cannot lay my hands on the 

 reference, that migratory birds of the passerine order have been frequently 

 seen to rest on the water on fine smooth days, and in this way the terrific 

 strain of the journey may be lessened. In a recent number of the Ibis (14) 

 I read of a tremendous flight of swallows and other birds clustering and 

 resting on one of the big P. and 0. liners on her way through the Eed Sea. 

 This is a most curious circumstance, seeing that there is land on both sides, 

 and the birds had been really flying over land for some hundreds of miles. 

 The migratory instinct, which seems to us most strange, is in the adult bird 

 caused by the need for getting fi'om one place where food is becoming scarce 

 to another where the climate is warmer or more suitable for the upbringing 

 of young, and food is more easily attainable at that time of the year. This, 

 with the inherited memory of past flights to a suitable locality, accounts 



