fcii BWl 



Order COCCYGES.] 



[Family CUCULID^. 



OHALCOCOCCYX LUOIPUS. 



(SHINING CUCKOO.) 



Chrysococcyx lucidus (Gmelin), Buller, Birds of New Zealand, vol. i., p. 132. 



" Whiti-whiti'oka!" cries the Bronze Cuckoo, and the Maori exclaims, "So the spring is 

 upon us ! " Knowing it to be a summer migrant, and ignorant of its course of flight, he 

 calls this sweet harbinger of the season " the bird from Hawaiki" — that being the 

 traditional home of his race. Doubtless the bird was familiar to his ancestors in other 

 parts of Polynesia, and that is how this legend, which has a foundation of truth, has 

 survived so long. Even modern naturalists, who have had wider opportunities of observa- 

 tion, are unable to add very much to the Maori history of this migratory species. 



The Shining Cuckoo generally leaves New Zealand about the first or second week of 

 January ; but I received two specimens, in good plumage, from Mr. Morgan Carkeek, as late 

 in the season as February 22nd. 



Dr. Eamsay states that this bird has been caught at sea, between Lord Howe Island* and 

 New Zealand, doubtless whilst migrating from the latter to the former island. 



Mr. James Dall, of Collingwood, writes me that about the end of January or beginning of 

 February, 1898, he found a young Shining Cuckoo being fed by Blight-birds (Zosterops 

 ccerulescens) on the leech that attacks the hawthorn. He had shot the bird before he knew 

 what it was ; and there could be no mistake about the observation. The specimen was sent 

 in spirits to the Government Agricultural Department at Wellington. 



Captain Hutton, in his paper on 'Our Migratory Birds, 't says: "The Long-tailed Cuckoo 

 {Urodynamis taitensis) arrives in New Zealand at the end of October or beginning of November, 

 and leaves in January or February, but its movements are not so easily traced as those of the 

 Shining Cuckoo, for it is generally silent in the daytime. As in the last case, the young birds 

 linger longer than their parents, and are occasionally seen as late as the first week in April. 

 These birds retain their young spotted plumage much longer than the young of the Shining 

 Cuckoo; but no specimen showing the change into that of the adult has as yet been shot in 

 New Zealand." (The italics are mine.) But does our Shining Cuckoo ever have the spotted 



* Lord Howe Island is situated in S. lat. 31° 33' and E. long. 159° 5'. It is said to be 450 miles north-east of 

 Sydney, and 300 miles from Port Macquarie. It is some 500 miles this side of Norfolk Island, and is the most 

 southern of the outlying islands on the east coast of Australia. Its zoology has been closely investigated by 

 Mr. E. Etheridge, jun., the Palaeontologist to the Australian Museum and Geological Survey of New South 

 Wales. 



f Trans. N. Z. Inst., vol. xxxiii. 



lighthouse at Cape Maria Van Dieman, at five in the afternoon of the 28th of that month. There was a strong 

 easterly gale blowing at the time, and the barometer registered 29-83, the thermometer 63° Fahr. The bird was 

 exhausted and quiet, but its plumage was fresh and not in any way draggled or weather-beaten. I have numbers of 

 references of its having been heard on various dates, from September 3rd at Queenstown ; the 4th at Winton ; the 

 13th at Akaroa ; the 28th at Te Kutnu ; onwards to the end of October at Waiau, Southland, and elsewhere. . . . 

 Numerous other notes as to its arrival can be found in the pages of the ' Transactions of the New Zealand Institute/ 

 and they all point to the advent of this mysterious bird from the north-east, probably in small parties, and generally 

 at night." 



