The Cuckoos: The Long~tailed Cuckoo 
179 
are both referred to in the following portion of an ancient 
whakatapatapa maara, or song of a company when digging a 
kumara plot—a song dating back seventeen or eighteen 
generations:— 
Pipiwharauroa 
Te maim i wliiti mai 
I tarawaahi 
Me to o ano ki te wae mau ai, 
]N r au mai. 
The shining cuckoo 
The bird which has crossed hither 
From beyond the sea 
With the O carried in its foot, 
Welcome. 
“If asked to give an example of the early but vigorous song 
of the pipiwharauroa,” writes Stowell, “I should put it in this 
way:— 
Ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, 
Ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, ko-o-o-o-e, 
Whi-ti-i-i, whi-ti-i-i, whiti-whiti-o-ra, whiti-o-o-ra, whiti-o-o-ra, 
and so on.” He substitutes koe for kui, but the above could 
well be a representation of the song (1) with the conclusion 
(4), the wittiu representing perhaps, to other ears, whiti-ora. 
The parasitical habits of the bird, are referred to in the 
proverb Penei me te pipiwharauroa, (GK, p. 80)—“He is just 
like the bronze-winged cuckoo” (deserts his children, or has 
illegitimate children). 
Of the eight Maori names recorded (WJ, p. 200), the one com¬ 
monly used is pipiwharauroa, and this is usually contracted 
to ’wharauroa. 
The long-tailed cuckoo. —Above, brown, banded, and streaked 
with rufous; below, white with longitudinal streaks of dark 
brown; eye, reddish-brown. The sexes are alike. The young 
have the upper surface brown, spotted with fulvous-white; the 
lower surface rufous-white, streaked with dark brown. Total 
ength 16! m., of which the tail is 9f in.; wing-spread 21 in. 
9Q‘ Brownish olive, sometimes clouded with brownish- 
frj-* L i ngth ’ ab ° Ut three " ( iuarters of an inch. It is a matter 
difficulty to find the egg, and to identify it when found. 
