134 THE ANIMALS OF NEW ZEALAND 



out of the nest; eats largely three times a clay, but does not care 

 for meat; increasing rapidly in size. November 20th — Nearly 

 feathered ; placed it in the cage, but it looked sickly. November 

 21st — Young cuckoo died. 



It was by observing the habits of the shining cuckoo that 

 naturalists found that New Zealand participated in the great 

 southern migrations. When Mr. Colenso stated, in 1842, that the 

 bird was migratory, the furthest distance across the sea that 

 migratory birds had been known to fly was from Nor^vay to 

 Scotland, and across the eastern JNIediterranean from Egypt to 

 the Greek islands, in each ease a distance of about 300 miles, 

 involving about eleven hours of continuous fl\"ing. 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 that naturalists here 

 had made a mistake. Dr. Wallace, in his Geographical Distribu- 

 tion of Animals, wdiich was published thirty-four years after 

 IMr. Colenso 's statement, saj^s that it is extremely improbable, and 

 he adds that "in a country which has still such wide tracts of 

 unsettled land, it is very possible that the birds in c^uestion may 

 only move from one part of the islands to the other. " It is now 

 fully acknowledged, however, that these birds do migrate, and 

 that they are among the most notable migratory birds in the 

 world. 



The shining cuckoo appears in the northern parts of New 

 Zealand regularly in the latter half of September; and early 

 in October it is found in Wellington and in the South Island. 

 It breeds in New Zealand. All the old birds leave the southern 

 portions of the country during the first and second weelvs in 

 January, but they do not leave the north until the end of 

 January, or perhaps later. Some, at least, of the young birds 

 leave considerably later than their parents, as they have been 

 shot in the South Island in April. The times of appearance 

 and departure of the old birds are wonderfully regular in both 

 islands. In the Chatham Islands the birds come and go at about 

 the same dates as in New Zealand. Here we have distinct evidence 

 that the birds travel from the North to the South, and then back 



