2l8 Matwews. Nature of New Ze-aland Avifauna. [ 5T" •, 



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from anything referable to the family in Austraha, which is its 

 stronghold. Three of the species — Cyanorhamphus novcB-zelandice, 

 auriceps, and malherby — Hve on the mainland, more or less 

 together, while the first two are represented by sub-species on 

 the Chatham Islands and on some of the Subantarctic islands. 

 On Antipodes Island — one of the latter — lives a very distinct 

 species of large size, and from which, indicating the tenor of the 

 evolution through isolation, probably a flightless form would 

 have been produced. As representatives of a distinct family of 

 Parrots, the Kaka and the Kea {Nestor meridionalis and notahilis) 

 have become famous through the activities of the latter in search 

 of a new diet. As a matter of fact, it is certain these would have 

 become flightless had not man intervened and, through per- 

 secution, compelled them to utilize their flying limbs before disuse 

 had totally disabled them. No Parrot of Austraha, the home of 

 Parrots, is classed near to these at the present, but their morph- 

 ology is not well understood in view of recent scientific work. 



Two Cuckoos are natives of New Zealand — the Shining Cuckoo, 

 with its mythological journey of thousands of miles each year, 

 and the Long-tailed Cuckoo, with a known distribution of less 

 extent, but still its migrations are not tracked. We have written 

 " mythological journey " because no facts have yet been provided 

 to account for the myth. Shining Cuckoos are heard and then 

 their whistles cease, and from these facts a journey of thousands 

 of miles is premised and a settling place selected, but, so far, no 

 birds have been secured at the suggested locahty. Here lies the 

 puzzle of Neozelanic ornithology. An Austrahan and Polynesian 

 Kingfisher has estabhshed itself, so that a sub-specific distinction 

 may be accepted. 



Then we arrive at the Passeriform birds, which we enumerate as 

 thirty-two species. Such^a total is insignificant, and it is at once 

 lessened by the removal of three very rare visitors from Aus- 

 tralia. Of the twenty-nine left, one is the well-known recent 

 Australian immigrant, Zosterops lateralis, about which much has 

 been written as regards its introduction. 



The genera which these twenty-eight are included in number 

 twenty-one, and nearly every one of these is endemic. Rarely an 

 Australian representative can be determined, but more often no 

 near relation can be cited, and more than half a dozen constitute 

 endemic famihes, but their exact situation in the phylogenetic 

 classification is at present indeterminate. 



The whole series can be dismissed with very httle notice, as the 

 speculation is not supported by facts, but merely fancies. Thus, 

 the allotment of the four small birds — the Rifleman {Acanthisitta 

 Moris), the Stephens Island Wren [Traversia lyalli), the Bush- 

 Wren {Xenicus longipes), and the Rock-Wren {Xenictts gilviventris) 

 — to two distinct families is based upon facts, but the inclusion 

 of these in the Super-family Pittoidea, and thereby classing them 

 with Pittas, has not such a sure foundation. The basis of this 

 alliance is more probably due to convergence in the anatomical 



