180 Bird-Song : and New Zealand Song Birds 
This cuckoo is sometimes called the screamer, from its loud 
shrill note. It resembles the shining cuckoo only in its para¬ 
sitical habit, and in the mystery of its migration. It arrives 
later—towards the end of October or the beginning 0 f 
November, and leaves in January or February (Tr Vol 33 
1901, p. 258). ’’ ’ ’ 
Its movements are not traced so easily as those of the 
’wharauroa, as it seems to move about chiefly at night. Its 
winter quarters are not certainly known; birds have been 
obtained in the Solomon Islands, but rarely in New Caledonia 
(Tr., Vol. 33, 1901, p. 258). They have also been reported in 
Fiji, the Friendly Islands, the Marquesas, Samoa (JP, Vol. 1, 
1892, pp. 181-2), and other Pacific Islands (Tr., Vol. 36, 1904, 
p. 143), but the land from which they first set out on their 
southern migration is not known. As with the shining cuckoo, 
the old birds leave earlier than the young on their supposed 
departure from New Zealand. The white-head appears to be 
the bird most often chosen as host for the egg of the long- 
taded cuckoo, though eggs supposed to belong to it have been 
recorded in the nests of the tom-tit, warbler, and blight-bird; 
and besides these birds, the pigeon and tui have been seen 
feeding the young cuckoo (Tr., Vol. 36, 1904, pp. 140-1), so 
they, too, may have been foster-parents;—though as before 
noted, birds may be foster-feeders that are not foster-parents. 
It once seemed doubtful if the egg was ever placed in the nest 
of the riroriro (warbler), as the young of the shining cuckoo 
fiils it completely when fledged, and the long-tailed cuckoo is 
a much larger bird, but the insertion of the egg in the nest has 
actually been observed by Mr. Overton in Otago. The egg was 
first laid on the ground, and then carried by the bird in its 
beak and placed in the nest. The same observer saw a cuckoo 
attempt, but fail, to place an egg in the nest of a tui. There is 
a Maoii whakatakiri, a child’s song, sung to an infant in arms 
(Tr., Vol. 36, 1904, p. 131):— 
Ko te uri au i te whenakonako, 
I te koekoea. 
E riro nei ma te tataihore e wlianp'ai. 
o 
