OCEANIA WOOD 391 



It was reminiscent of home to find the Pacific godwit {Limosa 

 lapponica haueri) in north New Zealand. I am also reminded that 

 there is at least one compensation in visiting Australasia during the 

 "off" season for birds; one sees some old friends in the shape of 

 migrants who for reasons of their own fly across thousands of miles 

 of ocean to spend the winter in that delectable land. It might be 

 supposed that all birds that insist on breeding in countries with a 

 snowy season would, after a dozen or two generations of experience, 

 seek the nearest warm or moderate winter climate furnishing suf- 

 ficient food. However, as every budding ornithologist knows, some 

 do not, and perhaps not even the most erudite and experienced stu- 

 dent of bird behavior knows always why. In any event, the at- 

 tempted solution of this problem has added much literature to dis- 

 tributional ornithology, and it is still coming in. Speaking again of 

 godwit migration, at the northern extremity of North Island, New 

 Zealand, is the Bay of Spirits— so called from the Maori belief that 

 the souls of the dead take their flight into the other world from this 

 locality. It is an uninhabited lonely coast, the last stepping-off place, 

 as it were, and would appear to be appropriate for the purpose as- 

 signed to it by a barbaric but imaginative race. There is, however, 

 another reason, probably the reason, for this tradition: also at the 

 northern tip of long and narrow New Zealand is the rocky plateau 

 where the godwits assemble in thousands for their annual return to 

 Siberia. It must be a wonderful and awe-inspiring sight. Even the 

 matter-of-fact Buller (Manual, p. 56) is moved to these words: 

 " Rising from the beach in a long line and much clamor, they form 

 into a broad semicircle and, mounting high in the air, generally take 

 a course due north ; sometimes they rise in a confused manner ; and, 

 after circling about at a considerable height, return to the beach to 

 reform, as it were, their ranks, and then make a fresh start on their 

 distant journey. The departure from any fixed locality usually 

 begins on almost the exact date year after year; and for a week or 

 10 days after the migration has commenced fresh parties are con- 

 stantly on the wing, the flight generally taking place about sunset, 

 and sometimes after dark." Does it not seem likely that a people of 

 our own Aryan stock might easily translate this truly wonder- 

 working episode into the belief, so firmly held by most aboriginals, 

 of a happy hunting ground to which journey the spirits of the dead 

 when this fitful fever called life has run its course ? 



Not only is the parson bird {Prosthemadera novae-zealandiae) 



or tui, as he is called by the Maoris, one of the most striking but he 



is also among the most interesting of the New Zealand avifauna. 



Imagine a bird about the size and general appearance of our common 



■ <;row, generally of a metallic bluish or greenish black, the upper 



