BurrER.— Notes on the Ornithology of New Zealand. 193 
was much dead timber on the banks of the river, and it appeared to me 
that the birds were feasting on the large brown cicada. This is the only 
occasion on which I have observed this species consorting as it were in 
parties," 
Curysococcyx LUCIDUS, Gould.—Shining Cuckoo. 
Respecting our little migratory cuckoo, Captain Mair furnishes. the 
following notes :— Speaking from ten years’ observation of this bird in 
the Tauranga district, I may state that it never sings after the middle of 
February and seldom after the beginning of that month. As late as the 
end of March or beginning of April, during several successive years, I 
have met with these birds in the Mangorewa forest between Tauranga and 
Rotorua, but never heard them utter a note at this season. I have seen 
numbers of them perched in silence on the branches of the poporo ( Solanum 
nigrum), always in full feather, but absolutely songless, This I regard as 
& very curious fact. On the subject of their parasitie habit of breeding, I 
may add that on two occasions I have seen the young cuckoo fed by the 
grey warbler—a bird considerably its inferior in size; and I can further 
attest, from personal observation, that the same little bird performs the like 
parental office for the young of the koheperoa, or long-tailed cuckoo, as 
sketched in Dr. Buller’s * Birds of New Zealand.’ " 
Pogonornts cora, Gray.—Stitch-bird, — 
Captain Mair informs me that this handsome bird is still plentiful 
on the West Coast between Raglan and Waikato Heads, also in the ranges 
behind the Wangape Lake in the Lower Waikato. : 
It was formerly comparatively abundant in the wooded hills around 
Wellington and flanking the Hutt valley, but for some years past not a 
specimen has been obtained. 
ANTHUS NOVH-ZEALANDIZ, Gray.—New Zealand Pipit. 
In former papers I have mentioned the frequent occurrence of albino 
ground-larks, and commented on the remarkable tendency generally to 
albinism in many other species of bird in New Zealand—a fact not easily 
accounted for in a temperate and equable climate like ours. This abnormal 
feature appears ig be extending itself to the introduced birds, and the 
following newspaper clipping furnishes an instance ;— 
“ As an ornithological curiosity an up-country paper mentions that a 
gentleman residing near the Wairarapa Lake has noticed on his run two 
English larks, the one being pure white and the other as yellow as a 
canary.” 
Rnurrpuma Fuuicinosa, Buller.—Black Fantail. 
Since my last notice of this species, three more instances of its occur- 
rence in the North Island have come to my knowledge. Y 
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