40 SECRETS OF ANIMAL LIFE 



round Ben Lui, we heard the irrepressible dissyllabic 

 and trisyllabic call, " Cuck-oo " and " Cuck- 

 cuck-oo." One fellow seemed to call thirteen times 

 in succession, unless an echo or a rival falsified our 

 counting; and every now and then we heard the 

 female's curious "water-bubbling" laugh (she is 

 not known to say "Cuck-oo"), upon which there 

 were loud answering calls, and we saw a rush of two 

 or three males, which was probably followed by -a 

 scrimmage. It is not quite certain that the laugh- 

 ing sound is confined to the female. It must not be 

 confused with a remarkable noise often made by 

 the male before the utterance of " cuck-cuck-oo." 

 Mr. Kirkman compares it to " the noise that would 

 be made by a person with a rasping cough trying 

 not to laugh, but with indifferent success." 



One of the many cuckoo puzzles was repeatedly 

 before us on our week-end holiday, that a little 

 bird (like a hedge-sparrow is all that we can truth- 

 fully say) often shadowed the cuckoo on its flight, 

 and sometimes flew at it aggressively. This was 

 seen with great clearness when the cuckoo and 

 the little bird both alighted on the telegraph wires. 

 After a brief pause the shadower would fly up in the 

 cuckoo's face a pygmy against a giant whereupon 

 the "blessed bird" of the poets would change its 

 perch. The question which the often-repeated scene 

 raised was whether the little bird was a re- 

 sentful parent in whose nest the cuckoo had been 

 playing its well-known trick. Or was it in line 

 with that mobbing of a cuckoo by a crowd of little 



