396 Transactions. 



London to New York during the light of a single day, on a mere thimbleful 

 of gnats, or one that can take its breakfast in Canada and its supper in 

 Brazil. Sustained powers of flight are chiefly useful to the majority of 

 birds during their migrator\' journeys. On these occasions they perform 

 some astonishing feats, principally during the night-time, when I have heard 

 different species calling to each other as they passed over London. The 

 migratory movements of birds are in many respects very curious indeed : 

 all breeding movements are in the direction of the Poles and away from 

 the Equator. These great spring and autimm movements take place over 

 certain well-established tracks or " fly-lines," and the mystery of mysteries 

 is that during the autumn journey the birds that know nothing about the 

 fly-lines from actual experience go first. Out of three hundred and sixty 

 different kinds making the Island of Heligoland their stopping-place for a 

 rest, in only one single instance do the old birds precede the young ones, 

 and that is the case of the cuckoo. Migrants from Europe spend the winter 

 in Africa as a rule, and it is said that those breeding farthest north in the 

 summer fly farthest south in the winter, and that British swallows and 

 martins reach Natal and CajDe Colony." 



Chalcococcyx lucidus has a number of popular nani' s — the bronze-winged, 

 shining, ghstening, bronze, golden-winged, green, short-tailed, and smaller 

 cuckoo ; cuckoo's mate and dog-whistler, or simply whistler, are also com- 

 mon terms based on its curious cry. The bronze cuckoo may be said to be 

 one of the most notable of the New Zealand birds, and to have a real his- 

 torical and geographical value, for it was by observing the habits of the 

 bird that naturalists found that New Zealand participated in the great 

 southern migrations. When Mr. Colenso (17) stated in 1812 that this bird 

 was migratory, the furthest distance across the sea that migratory birds 

 had been known to fly was from Norway to Scotland, and across the 

 eastern Mediterranean Sea fi'om Egypt to the Greek Islands — in each case 

 a distance of about three hundred miles, involving about eleven hours' 

 continuous flying. When it was asserted that the shining cuckoo traversed 

 more than three times that distance of ocean — from New Caledonia to New 

 Zealand and the Chatham Islands-- it was thought ihat naturalists here 

 had made a mistake. A. R. Wallace, in his " Geographical Distribution of 

 Animals," as late as 1876 says, " This is extremely improbable, especially 

 in a country which has still such wide tracts of unsettled land. It is very 

 possible that the birds in question may only move from one part of the 

 islands to the other." Hutton and Drummond add, " It is now fully 

 acknowledged, however, that those birds do migrate, and that they are 

 among the most notable migratory birds in the world." 



Early in spring, usually about the last week in September, residents of 

 New Zealand from end to end are familiar with the beautifully sustained 

 notes " kui, kui, kui " of our bronze visitor. For a week or two the " whiti 

 whiti, ora," or the final flourish or trill of " tiu, tiu, tiu," is not heard ; and, 

 just as in England the first notes of the common cuckoo are not what they 

 are a few weeks later, so in New Zealand and Australia (18) the first 

 arrivals, the males, are either silent or their song or call is decidedly shorter 

 and more limited than when the breeding season is in full swing and their 

 notes of courtship are more entrancing. Bearing on this question of the 

 shortness of song of the first arrivals, the male birds, no doubt, as is well 

 known of migratory birds, having the lead on account of strength of wing, 

 Mr. Campbell says of the pallid cuckoo, " They are first heard about the 

 end of Aixgust or beginning of September, but so far as my observations 



