224 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



believe that it denotes the survival of a very ancient 

 Oriental notion, whose significance was very real in a 

 symbolic way to the primitive people among whom it 

 originated locally, but has now been utterly forgotten. 



Plunging into the thickets of comparative mythology, 

 hoping to pluck a few fruity facts for our pains, we find 

 that in Hindoo myths the cuckoo stands as a symbol of 

 the sun when hidden behind clouds, that is, for a rainy 

 condition of the sky; furthermore that this bird has a 

 reputation for possessing exceeding wisdom surpassing 

 that of other birds, all of which are fabled to be super- 

 naturally wise : and that it knew not only things present 

 but things to come. It was, in fact, in the opinion of the 

 ancient Hindoos, a prophetic bird of unrivalled vatic 

 ability. The Greeks thought their own cuckoo had in- 

 herited some of these qualities, for they made it one of 

 the birds in the Olympian aviary of Zeus, who, please re- 

 member, was the pluvial god. 



Plainly this rainy-day character was given to the bird 

 through the circumstance that in southern Asia, as in 

 southern Europe, the cuckoo is one of the earliest and 

 quite the most conspicuous of spring-birds — and the 

 spring is the rainy season. In early days farmers had 

 little knowledge of a calendar. They sowed and reaped 

 when it seemed fitting to do so. The coming of the cuckoo 

 coincided with experience, and came to be their almanac- 

 date for certain operations — a signal convenient in advice 

 to the young, or to a newcomer; and as a rule hoped-for 

 showers followed the bird's advent. In the same way 

 old-fashioned Pennsylvania farmers used to connect corn- 

 planting time and the first-heard singing of the brown 

 thrasher. 



Hesiod instructed his rural countrymen that if "it 



