100 



At a meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society, on November 22nd, 1898, Sir James 

 Hector exhibited a specimen of this Cuckoo, from the stomach of which he had taken two young 

 birds, nestlings of Pseudogerygone flaviventris, with wing-feathers just sprouting. It is well 

 known that the Koheperoa is predatory, and I long ago recorded the taking of a very young Tui 

 from the stomach of one I had shot ; but in this instance the shameless Cuckoo had apparently 

 devoured the rightful occupants before appropriating the nest of the Grey Warbler and depositing 

 its eggs, or, rinding the nest tenanted by young birds, it may have plundered it, and then 

 proceeded to look for another containing eggs. In either case, it presents the Cuckoo in the 

 character of a very unscrupulous marauder ! 



In January, 1904, Dr. Robert Fulton read a paper before the Science Conference in Dunedin, 

 being ' Notes on the Habits of the Long-tailed Cuckoo,' of which he courteously sent me, 

 amongst others, an advanced copy. In reviewing this interesting paper, the Editors of the 

 'Ibis ' are inaccurate in their statement (pp. cit., 1904, p. 468) that Dr. Fulton enumerates " a list 

 of sixteen species which are known, with more or less certainty, to be the foster-parents of 

 Urodynamis." It is true that the author mentions sixteen cases, more or less specific, that have 

 come to his knowledge, but the alleged hosts were only ten native species and a Brown Linnet. 

 The evidence adduced in some of these cases is anything but satisfactory, and one knows 

 how even tolerably good observers are liable to make mistakes in identifying birds on the 

 wing. I have no doubt whatever that Miro albifrons, Myiomoira macrocephala, and Glitonyx 

 ochrocephala, have been sometimes pressed into the service ; but I am very sceptical about 

 several of the other species mentioned. I think it highly unlikely, for example, that our Wood- 

 Pigeon (which is strictly frugivorous) has ever been the foster-parent of the Cuckoo, for it would 

 know nothing of feeding the young bird on caterpillars, on which it almost wholly subsists ; and 

 I think it just as unlikely that the Tui has ever filled that office, seeing what a determined and 

 chronic hostility exists between these birds. Then, again, even a practised observer might be 

 mistaken in thinking that he saw a Grey Creeper, instead of a Grey Warbler (very similar in 

 appearance and manner of flight), "feeding -a young Cuckoo." In the case of the Bell-Bird, all 

 that is alleged is that a Cuckoo was " seen sitting on the nest " ; and in that of Zoster ops an egg* 

 of a dark colour " tapering to one end " was found in the nest, and a Cuckoo was " seen coming- 

 out of the tree." To my mind, much more conclusive evidence must be forthcoming before these 

 isolated cases can be regarded as established. As regards the Grey Warbler, however, there are 

 innumerable well-authenticated cases all over the country.* 



* Dealing with the extraordinary annual migration of this species, Dr. Fulton says: " I have recently communi- 

 cated with a number of the lighthouse keepers on our coast-line, and have gathered some interesting information on 

 this subject. The earliest intimation of the appearance of this bird last season comes from Mr. John Duthie, at Cape 

 Palliser, who says that the first Cuckoo arrived on June 6th, and six or seven a few days later. They hung 

 about the lighthouse for six or eight weeks, and then suddenly disappeared the first week in August. Mr. Hansen, 

 from Pencarrow Head Lighthouse, reported that one morning in the first week of September, exact day uncertain, 

 when coming from the tower after putting out the light, at 6.30 a.m., he saw a Long-tailed Cuckoo. The bird was 

 flying low, just skimming the tops of the tauhinu scrub. They have been seen at Doubtless Bay, at Stephen Island 

 Lighthouse, on the Kermadecs, and at Akaroa, about the middle of the same month. At Mokohinu Lighthouse 

 Mr. Sandager caught several on the lantern at night in October, and Mr. Elsdon Best reported a young one at 

 Euatahuna on the 10th of that month. Mr. McNeill saw the birds at Cape Campbell Lighthouse in thick, dirty 

 weather at night in October ; they have been frequently seen at Cape Farewell Lighthouse ; East Takaha, Nelson ; 

 Queen Charlotte Sound; Sumner and New Brighton ; Waikouaiti, Otago ; Kiverton and Te Tua, Southland, in the 

 second week in October ; and I myself saw the bird on October 20th and 25th in the bush at Newington, Dunedin. 

 Reischek found them on the Barriers in November ; and Mr. Byers, of Stirling, Otago, who has for years noted their 

 arrival carefully, finds that they invariably come to that locality from November 5th to the 7th. That they keep 

 on arriving from the north-east until about the end of November is shown by the fact of one having been caught on the 



