110 THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS 
miles to the east of t ermudas, 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 ”’ (Hudynamis 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. 
