By Sir J. Hector

7. The shining cuckoo.

Sir James Hector said the cuckoo had made a somewhat early visit to New Zealand this year, and a beautiful specimen of the little shining cuckoo had just been added to the collection in the Museum. This bird came down here every spring, generally in the month of September, from the Andaman Islands, south of Burmah, and even from the Phillipine Islands. It was a delicate little bird, with beautiful plumage. The specimen secured by him must have been hatched here last year, for these birds nested in New Zealand. It then went home to some tropical country, spent the winter there, and returned on another trip to New Zealand. The instinct that carried these birds to and fro between such far-distant countries as New Zealand and the Phillipines was truly wonderful. It might be, however, that the bird had a nearer winter home in some of the South Pacific islands, such as Tonga or Samoa. A bigger cuckoo, however, visited New Zealand from Tahiti, and a curious point about it was that it selected the only pensile nest there was in New Zealand—namely, that of the fantail—for the purpose of hatching its eggs. These pensile nests were more common in tropical countries where the cuckoo came from. These birds turned the eggs of the fantail out of the nest to lay their own there, and the little fantails had to hatch out these bigger eggs for the interloper. This, he added, went on year after year.

8. Fossil bones (Cetacean), from Hangaroa River, near the Gisborne—Rotorua stock-track; found by Mr. J. B. Jackson, and presented to the Museum by Mr. S. Percy Smith.