IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 25 August 1909, Page 13

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

NOTABLE ARRIVALS THIS

SPRING.

J FRE SHINING

CUCKOO AND ITS

HABITS.

(By J"ames Drtjmmond, F.L.S., F.Z.S.)

In a few -weeks the cuckoos will arrive from their island homes to herald the , coming of epring. While these extra- j ordinary visitors are spending the sum- ! mer months with us, observers in all , parts of the Dominion are asked to note their habits. In response to the appeal , made last year about 20 letters were for j .•warded, and other brief notes recording arrivals at different places were made. The principal fact established is that October and November may be set down in a general way as the months in which the migrants reach these shores. Some come in September and a few in August, and several individuals seem by chance to miss the great nvigration and to remain all * the yeiT round ; but October and November are the favourite montlus, and -there are probably no arrivals later j in the year. The Dominion's' literature j on the subject bas been, enlarged by a ■ notable paper on the. shining cuckoo read j at tbe June meeting of the Otago Philo- j aophic&l Institute -by Dr R. V. Fulton, of j Dunedin. All the letters sent to me were ! submitted to' Dr Fulton, and his own ob- j nervations and very wide reading have enabled him tio produce an able monograph. It rank 6 with hie paper on the iong-tailed cuckoo, published five years ago, as an important contribution to the Tpodd'a knowledge of the ways of its bird. life. .There' is certainly nobody in New Zealand wr.o is more enthusiastically in search of knowledge on the subject than Dr Fulton. It is probably hi 6 enthusiasm and hi*, impatience io possess certain facts which have led to his great disappointment at the result of last year's appeal. "The lack of interest and the scarcity of response from a population of a million people," he says, " is surprising. Are our people too immersed in business, or are there so few native-lovers amongst us?" he asks. "Surely in this country there are hundreds of people — intelligent, educated people — wLd have oportimities denied to our city dw-ellers of watching i theee birds and recording their most intonating habits; and I hope that Mr Drummond will appeal again, and that next year we shall have an astonishing amount of information on the habits of this bird to deal with." I do not share Dr Fulton's disappointment. It was the first appeal that had been made to the ( public generally, and many of those who j read it hardly realised the point* upon which information -is required. Besides that, specialised observations of birds' habits largely depend upon opportunities, which may not arise for yeaTs. Next mottth an article will be published in this oohimn clearly netting forth tUe habits to be observed, and the yes'ponse, no doitbt, will give belter results than the previous one. Most of the romance of the shining fuckoc is bound up in its departure from the beautiful tropical islands of Ihe Pacific, its perilous .continuous flight — the longest on record. — wlien it journeys ov«r 1000 miles of sea; its arrival here in the aontimental months; its love and j courtship; and, finally, the amazing dc- j termination of the most unnatural mother ■ to abjure the maternal affection that is common to the female sex in all classes of the animal kingdom. Apart from these considerations, the shining cuckoo has many charm?. It has fine manners, a peculiar and handsome plumage, which gives it a very distinguished appearance, and strong, liquid, silvery, and sustained .notes. Correspondents who made records last year have remarked that the notes are not so jubilant when the cuckoo first arrives as they are later on, when its " fancy lightly tur'is to thoughts of love." This is accounted for by the theory that the . first arrivals are males. They are probably stronger on the wing Jhan the females," and fly quicker. Many of them are companionles? for a time after arrival, and they do ;.ot put all their souls into Iheir songs until their mates" are present to admire their efforts. It is recorded in regard to the pallid cuckoo of Australia, indeed, that the principal body of migrant. 0 aw preceded by forerunners, •who Are absolutely silent. Mr Janes 'Anderson, keeper of the Kahurangi Point lighthouse at Collirvgwood, Nelson, ha.c observed this peculiarity. " The shmina cuckoo," he says, " made it* fir^t appearance here this season (1908) on October 6. For a week there seemed to be only one. The long flight, apparently, hfid put its vocal notes out of tune, as if .•= ■whistle was not as prolomrod as usual. On October 13 I paw three shining cuckoos in a young rata tree. One was sitting with its wings spread: the otheTS wtevo chasing each other thiough the branches. Now (November 1) yrn o?n hear them whistling all day Jon?. It would be easier to^guess the number of peas in a bottle "than the number of chining cuckoos at this place. Their ; whistle is more noticeable than the note.s | of any other bird. If all the bushy pins j of New Zealand have as many of these visitors as there are here their initiation j must be a very big thing indeed." Another observer, who is now in Perth, West Australia, but who lived for j many years in' Taranaki, and who has recorded observations extending over nearly 20 years, states that he has noticed that j for sonu days after arrival the cuckoo ' is very -quiet and retiring, and that " its silvery note, which afterwards become? so loud and distinct, is seldom heard, ■and, then nearly always in the night — in fact, on more than one occasion I have been apprised of the bird'= arrival by hearing the first three or four notes of , its song about midnight." The be=t re- ; presentation of the notes. I think, are

found in a delightful little song with which Maori children were taught to greet the cuckoo when it was first heard in the springtime. It is supplied by Mr Eltdon Best, and is : " Kui, kui, kui, whitiwhiti ora. " Even in these times the cry 16 often cfuoted by Maori orators a? an ornament of speech conveying best wishes for good fcitune, prosperity, and all happiness. The children's song into which th« cry has been, introduced is typical of its kind . ■ O bird, greeting to you. The warm season I appears and all trees have blossomed. Th« fragrance reaches the nose of man. You j again appear trilling on high — Trilling on the Bftventh month, trilling on the j eighth month. | Trill you even fort<h as you fly the following message to the homes of tbe lads and lasses : " Kui, kui, kui, whitiwhiti ora." .Another representation of the cry is : "Kui, kui, tioro, tioro, tioro"; and yet another is : " Whiti 0 ! Whiti 04 Whiti 0!" According to some Maoris, "Tioro, tioro, tioro," is used in cool weather, when the cuckoo is at rest. The bird does -not take a very prominent place in the quaint sayings that the Maoris have handed down from ijeneiation to genera- • tion. Sometimes, when parents neglect ' their children, they are reproached with j the remark : " You axe like the shining j cuckoo." and Mt Best has translated a j lullaby sung to an infant in arms in 1 which the following words occur: — "I I, am the offspring of the shining cuckoo, 'of the long- tailed cuckoo, left here for the white-headed canary to feed." The movements of both fhe shining cuckoo and the long-tailed cuckoo puzzled the old-time Maoris, but they felt that it was incumbent upon them to explain the birds' regular appeal ance and disappearance somehow. This resulted in the ■establishment of two strangle myths. One is t4iat, when summer months have passed away, all the cuckoos bury themselves in mud or in earth, and remain there throughout the winter, coming forth again when spring has arrived. The other is that they are, in som« mysterious way which has rot been explained, the offspring of a Norfh Island tree-lizard called the moko-papa or ngarara-papa. According to Sir Walter Bull^r, both cuckoo* have been called " the birds of Hawaiki." If this is so, the ancestors of the Maoris | Mere probably acquainted with them at Tahiti and other islands before the Maoris came to New Zealand in their canoes ab-mt 500 years ago. The fact that " Pipiwharauroa," the shining cuckoo's name, is nl c o (ntcording to Mr TregeaT) applied to the constellation of the r Ark or Canoe is accepted by Dr Fulton as 1 evidence that the Maoris believed that the bird had .«omo distant connection with the far-off lands from whose shores the historical canoes were launched. Mr S. Percy Smith states that there is no r articular mention of the shining cuckoo in the Maoris' traditions, but it is not infrequently referred to in tbeir songs. ' The common Maori name of the bird is • Pipiwharauro.i " Pi " is the young of any bird, and "pipi" means to make a chirping noise. "Wharau" in this reppect has no sense in the Maori language, but in other Polynesian dialects it means "long spread out." '" Roa," used in this ronnection, means "for a long time." Mr Smith therefore translates the word, which has puztled many people, as "the bird with the long call or whistle." Mr | Best states that the shining cuckoo is I also . called "Nakonoknl' or "Whtnaj konako," on account of the markings on I its plumage.