The long-tailed cuckoo (its young being fed here by a grey warbler) winters over in the Pacific Islands and flies south in spring. Polynesians would have noted the seasonal arrival and departure of the bird and realised it was heading towards land somewhere. This may have fuelled speculation about undiscovered islands in the vast Pacific Ocean.
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Alexander Turnbull Library
Reference:
PUBL-0012-14
Hand-coloured lithograph by John Gerrard Keulemans
Permission of the Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand, Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa, must be obtained before any re-use of this image.
Comments
I suspect that when the
Gerald Hanner (not verified)
04 September 2022
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