THE KOEKOEA

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 September 1927, Page 9

THE KOEKOEA

Legend and Fact Abcut tne L©ng=Tailed Cock©©

AROUND this visitor to New Zealand the Maoris have woven a strange legend symbolised in the name they have given this bird. Many Maori legends, when analysed under the searching lenses of modern science, are mythical and impossible, though, no doubt poetically beautiful. The flight of years has not affected this lore; it has been handed down from one generation to another, from father to son, and accepted unchallanged. Cut off from the outer and greater world, the ancient Maoris attempted to reason out and account for certain happenings, but their region for observation was cramped and circumscribed. Many of their deductions were correct, but, mostly, they were not.

Only the other day, an old Maori at Otaki replied to a remark that the sea was roaring loudly, “When sea he roars this way"—here he made an explanatory gesture—“rain he come; that way, no rain, bright day." A friend at Wanganui had given me one of th© tail feathers of the longtailed cuckoo. Noticing the feather in my hand, a Maori crossed over the street to me and Inquired where I had found it. A conversation resulted. These tail feathers, I gathered, are highly prized, and are also the mark and right only of certain chiefs to wear.

According to Maori tradition, the koekoea is not a visitor to New Zealand, but a native of this country. Evidently falling to account for a migratory disappearance of this bird, the Maoris invested it with a strangely impossible attribute, naming it “Koekoea,” or lizard bird. During the warmer months of spring and summer the Koekoea assumes bird form and has two names “Koekoea" and “Kohoperoa," and so as not to lose a single moment of this ecstatic existence it may be heard singing throughout both the night and the day, save only when the wind blows from the south. A remarkably wise and secretive bird indeed, it so skilfully hides its nest that neither the nest, eggs, nor 3ung have ever been found. Taking short swift flights, it dashes into heavy foliage so as to avoid being seen; then, .when it alights, still to

escape observation, it settles along its perch, not across, as do most other birds. When winter’s cold approaches, it sheds its feathers: and, taking the form or shape of a lizard, hides away among rocks and stones, or in tree holes, where it remains till the return of spring. During this period it is known as “Ngaha” or Lizard. Strangely enough, such a .writer and

authority on bird-life as Yates says: “It secures itself during winter months among stones and in tree-holes, remaining there till all danger of winter cold is passed.” Most likely Yates was influenced in this statement by conversation with Maoris: in no. other way can the statement, which is entirely impossible, be accounted for. The lizard legend belongs solely to the Taupo Maoris; other Maori tribes accredit the bird with an equally impossible trait, that of hibernating under water. The migration of the longtailed cuckoo takes place at night, chiefly. On that account it has seldom, or never, been witnessed, and for that reason the Maoris have tried to explain, its disappearance from New Zealand as they have done<

This cuckoo, scientifically named “Urodynamis Taitensis," arrives in New Zealand towards the end of October and departs during February. Its winter habitation seems so far unknown, but the bird has been seen at Fiji, Samoa, and the neighbouring islands. The general colour is brown, banded in black on the upper body;, belgw, it

is of a streaked ruddy brown. The eyes are reddish brown and very bright. Its total length is from 1G to 17 inches, and of this length the tail alone in an adult bird measures from nine to 10 inches. The eggs, which are of an olive tint, are not only hard to find, but to identify; Both the sexes ar© alike in coloration and size. The egg is not immediately laid in a nest. It is first deposited upon the ground, then carefully carried in the beak and placed in the neSt of its host, a tomtit, warbler, or tui, sometimes in that of a pigeon. The call of th© Koekoea cannot be described as being melodious or beautiful, in spite of what Yates and Taylor both say of it.-