608 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
disproportion between those of the land and of sea, the 
latter, though fewer in species, greatly preponderate in 
number ; there are probably twenty-four families of them 
which may be strictly said to belong to the shores. The 
traveller through the New Zealand forest seldom sees more 
than one or two solitary ones flitting across his path ; and, 
except the matin and evening song of the sylvan warblers, 
or the occasional harsh cry of the parrot, Kaha, there is 
nothing to break the oppressive silence which reigns in their 
deep recesses. The burst of melody, however, which hails 
the early dawn when the varied songsters of the grove unite 
in raising their morning hymn, may be considered as a 
sufficient compensation for their silence during the day. 
The position of these islands being intermediate between 
the tropical and polar regions, causes some birds from each 
to visit them. From the warmer regions two species of the 
cuckoo, the Endynamys taitensis kohaperoa and Koekoea 
Chrysocercyx lucidus Pipiwharauroa , arrive in spring, they 
are called the birds of Hawaiki ; the Koekoea is said by 
some to hibernate in New Zealand, by burying itself in the 
mud at the bottom of rivers ; the Taupo natives state that 
this bird dives down in the lake and remains there until 
the spring, others imagine that they enter holes, and there 
remain until the next summer, it is singular that a similar 
idea of the swallow should be entertained at home ; another 
occasional visitor is the frigate bird, Fregata aguila , from the 
north, it is however but rarely seen. 
The Zosterops, a small migratory bird (f am. Litscinidce) made 
its appearance in the north isle in the winter of 1856; a few 
years before it was seen in the Middle Island for the first time, 
and was previously observed in the Auckland Isles, this little 
stranger is supposed originally to have migrated from Tas- 
mania or Australia, where it is found, its arrival was hailed as 
a blessing, being insectiverous, and feeding on the American 
blight, which has been very destructive to the apple tree in 
New Zealand; in winter it appears in flocks, and soon clears 
the trees of their noxious parasites, but as the spring advances 
it retires to the snowy mountains, and is not seen during the 
