Miscellaneous. 405 



probably the bird designated zitvogel in an old proverb, in accordance 

 with the passage of Pliny, " Cantus alitis temporarii quern cuculum 

 vocant." It is said that he never cries before the 3rd of April, and 

 never after the festival of St. John. But he cannot cry before he 

 has devoured a bird's Q^g. If you have money in your purse when 

 he first cries, all will go well during the year ; and if you were fast- 

 ing, you will be hungry the whole year. When the cuckoo has eaten 

 his fill of cherries three times, he ceases to sing. 



It portends misfortune to the Servian haiduken when the kuka- 

 vitza appears early and comes out of the black wood, but good luck 

 when his cry comes from the green wood. 



The froth in the meadows caused by the Cicada spumaria is called 

 Cuckoo- spittle ; G^erm. Kukuksspeichel ; Swiss, Guggerspeu ; Dan. 

 Giogespyt; otherwise Hexenspeichel, Witches-spit; Norw. Trold- 

 kiaringspye ; thus connecting the bird with supernatural beings. The 

 names of some plants confirm its mythic character : Oralis acetosella, 

 Old German, Gouches -ampfera ; Swiss, Guggersauer ; Anglo-Saxon, 

 Geaces-sure; Scotch, Goukemeat; Swed. Gokmat; Dan. Giogemad, 

 Giogesyre (it was believed that the bird liked to eat these) : Modern 

 German, Kubkuksbrot; Fr. Pain de Coucou, Panis cuculi. Cuckoo- 

 flower, Lychnis Flos-cuculi, Germ. Kukkuksblume. 



The Slavonians do not attribute anything bad or devilish to this 

 bird, which they always represent as a female. Zezhulice, sitting on 

 an oak, bewails the transitoriness of spring. The Servian kukavitza 

 was a maiden who long bewailed her brother's death, until she was 

 changed into the bird, " Sinja kukavitza" (the gray): so also in 

 Russian songs it is a bird of mourning and melancholy; and 

 Russian traditions speak of her as a young maiden changed by an 

 enchantress. 



Some mountains are named after the Cuckoo; and Caucasus is 

 said to be among the number. 



From J. Grimm's Deutsche Mythologie, vol. i. p. 640. 



ORTYX VIRGJNIANA IN NORFOLK. 



As little appears known now as to what success attended the 

 turning loose of some specimens of the Ortyx virginiana in Norfolk 

 several years since, an extract from a letter addressed to me nineteen 

 years ago by the Rev. JohnBurrell, F.L.S., Rector of Letheringsett, 

 near Holt in Norfolk, may throw some light on that subject. I may 

 premise that the above gentleman was a zealous naturalist of the old 

 school and contemporary with Marsham, Sir J. E. Smith, Haworth, 

 Lathbury, Skrimshire, Scales, &c. now no more, and member of the 

 original Aurelian Society. Mr. Burrell established a natural-history 

 correspondence amongst the cultivators of natural history in Norfolk 

 and Norwich, by which each member was bound to transmit to him 

 as the Focus or Registrar, on the first or second of each month, an 

 account of captures, observations, locus et tempus in entomology, &c. 

 for the past month, all of which letters he engaged to answer in a 

 similar way on the thirteenth and fourteenth of the same month, and 

 enter each and eveiy one in a book provided for that purpose by 

 himself, which book, if now in the possession of the family, would 



