The Common Cuckoo 227 



from the nest, for a space of some ten or twelve days, after 

 which time, if its herculean efforts are unavailing, it 

 assumes a quiet attitude, and remains to all intents and 

 purposes in perfect harmony with its neighbours. The 

 very formation — deformity, perhaps, would be the better 

 word — of its body, assists its will-power, for close anato- 

 mists concur in the opinion that it has an extraordinary 

 hollow or depression between the shoulders, which in no 

 small degree conduces to assist the young bird in working 

 itself under the other young, and getting them on its 

 shoulders, for the toppling over process, for which it is 

 noted. 



As I have already and previously intimated, we have not 

 a very high opinion of the cuckoo as a musician, or 

 vocalist, because he is monotonous until he becomes bi- 

 lingual, and gargles, or crows, or croaks. Those persons 

 who do not dwell constantly in the heart of the country 

 are apt to think and chortle poetically of many rural 

 sounds which we bucolics, or agrestics, adjure prosaically ; 

 but the present point is that the gargling of the cuckoo is 

 synchronal with the closing of the principal act of the 

 annual trouting drama. After the passing of the drake, 

 both trout and trout-fishers take a rest of many bars' 

 duration, and so we look back and review the recent 

 circumstances. 



