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THE CUCKOO 



Cuckoos' cries are so deeply associated with the first warm 

 spring days that the earliest reported occurrences of the bird 

 always need to be treated with considerable caution. Rustics, 

 especially children, have an ingrained instinct for crying 

 cuckoo to signalise the first soft, bright weather which feels 

 like the genuine cuckoo-time ; and their imitations are often 

 so accurate as to deceive even practised ears at a little 

 distance. Nor are many of the statements that a cuckoo has 

 been seen in March, or even February, any more trustworthy 

 than reports of its being heard. Even birds seem to be 

 deceived by the likeness of the cuckoo to a hawk ; and it is 

 perhaps not wonderful that human observers are apt in spring 

 to mistake a sparrow-hawk sneaking along the hedges, or 

 even a kestrel, for the bird they expect to appear. Both eye 

 and ear being so fallible, the only certain proof of the arrival 

 in England of a cuckoo before its normal date in April is for 

 it to be both seen and heard cuckooing by a thoroughly trust- 

 worthy observer, or for its body to be produced, freshly shot. 

 This latter test may no one satisfy ; and though there seems 

 no definite reason why cuckoos should not occasionally 

 arrive in February or March in years when the weather 

 over western Europe is exceptionally mild, there is little 



