24 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



not leave their winter quarters for want of food ; and our 

 godwit would find just as much food on our shores in the 

 winter after it has left, as in summer, when it first comes. 

 Our bronze and long-tailed cuckoos migrate from New Guinea. 

 In that country three or four species of bronze cuckoos are 

 resident. They evidently find food there all the year round, 

 and what they could do in this respect could also be done by 

 the migrating species, which visit New Zealand and Tasmania. 

 With us, the cuckoos are harbingers of summer, and, even in 

 summer, insects are much less plentiful here than in New 

 Guinea or Australia. It is clear therefore, that the cuckoos are 

 not attracted to us by an abundance of insect food. 



Their migrations may probably be explained by the theory 

 that a habit has been formed by resorting each year to the 

 same breeding place. The birds do not like to break away from 

 the old-time custom, and it may be that they are attacked by 

 home-sickness. Perhaps the cuckoos, after living for some 

 months in a distant land, cherish the sentiment expressed by 

 the coloured man, whose heart longed for the old folks at home^ 

 and the cabin on the Mississippi shore. 



In respect to the Limicolae, or shore birds, such as the 

 plover, the godwit, and the sandpiper, it is likely that they 

 return annually to the old feeding ground of their forefathers, 

 and that this habit also has become an instinct. 



In the Northern Hemisphere, migratory birds, as a rule, 

 follow the land. Some of them, however, have to cross the 

 Mediterranean Sea, others the North Sea, and others the 

 English Channel ; and many shore birds pass from island to- 

 island in the Malay Archipelago. But the boldest fiight on 

 record is to New Zealand and the Chatham Islands, probably 

 from New Caledonia, a distance of a thousand miles or more. 

 The question may be asked, "How do birtls know that they 

 will find land at the end of their long voyage?" They do not 

 fly at random ; they go voluntarily ; they must know there is 

 land ahead. The information is not given by "stragglers," 

 which have been lost from a migrating fioek, and have gone 

 to some other country, as these do not return to start new lines. 



