110 THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 



miles to the east of the Bermudas, on which islands 

 they alight only if the weather is unfavourable. 

 Flying south from the Bermudas or somewhere east 

 of them, they must cover some 1,700 miles before 

 they land on one of the West India islands. Either 

 then they fly at an almost incredible pace or they 

 remain upon the wing an almost incredible time. If 

 this wonderful flight is really achieved by the 

 American Golden Plover, it is certainly the most 

 wonderful athletic feat with which birds can be 

 credited. But there are other flights which might 

 well strain our power of belief, if the evidence were 

 not so strong. There are migrant birds which pass 

 the summer (the Antipodean summer) in New 

 Zealand, and among them are some land birds, 

 notably two species of Cuckoo. " The long -tailed 

 Cuckoo " (Eudynamis taitensis) — I quote from Mr. 

 W. L. Buller's Manual of the Birds of New Zealand* — 

 " which is a native of the warm islands of the South 

 Pacific, visits our country in the summer and breeds 

 with us. It begins to arrive about the second week 

 in October, but it is not numerous till the following 

 month, when pairing commences." To get to New 

 Zealand from New Caledonia it must pass a very 

 wide stretch of sea, and, if it can find no small island 

 to use as a resting-place, it must cover 1,000 miles 

 in one flight. Since it almost certainly comes, not 

 from Australia, but from the islands to the north- 

 west and north of its summer home, there is little 

 Norfolk Island or the Kermadec Islands that might 

 be used as convenient halting -places. There is 



* Buller's Manual of New Zealand Birds, p. 7. See Captain 

 Hutton's Animals of New Zealand. 



