9 
New Zealand Cuckoo—This species although not unexpected, was 
certainly not expected in the numbers seen. We estimated a pop¬ 
ulation of 50 on the island. This seems an exceptionally early 
migration date but the literature has not been surveyed. 
The island had no bandable bird populations. 
Christmas Island 
Since an extra day was picked up during the course of the 
trip, we spent four days on Christmas Island instead of the 
Intended three. The Sooty Tern populations were just completing 
the breeding cycle and had many flying young. Two colonies 
were investigated and worked, i.e. Four Wells at the north end 
of the island (probably formerly called Northwest Point but 
several miles east of there) and one at the southern end of the 
island at Aeon Point. There was another colony at Isles Lagoon 
area but it was not investigated. Both colonies worked,. probably 
had an aggregate of 350>000 birds. We banded 27729 Sooty Terns 
in four nights banding. Fifty-one returns from birds banded 
in July 1965 were obtained at Four Wells. 
The three main Islands in the lagoon were worked but briefly. 
One full night was spent on Motu Upua to bleed and band petrels 
and shearwaters. The Phoenix Island Petrel and Christmas Island 
Shearwater were both in various stages of the breeding cycle 
from fresh eggs to fledged young. The Christmas Island Shear¬ 
waters were also in the same stage. The Wedge-tailed Shearwater 
were present but not breeding except for one pair which had a 
3/4 grown chick in a burrow. Motu Tabu was worked briefly one 
afternoon for shearwater/petrels and Cook Island was visited 
about one hour to determine whether the Sooty Terns were breeding 
