N.Z. To Solomons.

Remarkable Migration of Small Birds.

THE mystery about the migration of the shining cuckoo from N.Z. in the winter is gradually being cleared up, according to a New Zealand journal.

So remote is N.Z. that even if birds fly by way of the islands—Norfolk, Lord Howe, and the Kermadecs—there are still unbroken stretches of hundreds of miles of ocean to be covered. Yet godwits leave in myriads every autumn from N.Z. for Siberia and return in the spring. When the total distance flown and the width of the sea spaces covered are considered, this is one of the most wonderful of large-scale bird migra tions.

The shining cuckoo has presented a different problem; it is a small bird, about the size of a thrush and, unlike the godwit, does not congregate in flocks. It disappears in the autumn and returns in the spring. It has al ways been believed that the cuckoo left N.Z., but in recent years some doubt has been cast on the theory, partly, perhaps, because it was hard to imagine so small a bird flying so far.

However, the Whitney South Seas expedition has found that the cuckoo winters in the Solomon Islands. Which ever way they go, the migration is amazing. On the average the young birds depart, according to many reports, later than the adults. The migration route is not shown them by other birds and their foster parents do not leave the country. Still, they leave and fly 1,100 miles across the sea to Australia, if they do not strike Lord Howe Island, which is 800 miles distant from N.Z.

Still more remarkable, after having reached the tropical Queensland coast, they do not stop there, but start flying again across another 950 miles of ocean till they finally reach the Solomon Islands or the Bismarck Archipelago.

The slightest error in the direction or in the strength of the migration and they probably would never see land again. r CZ