90 



SPRING 



may be mobbing the same bird with an antipathy as fierce as 

 their present affection for it. 



The idea that cuckoos become hawks in winter is a 

 fallacy of rustic natural history which dies hard. It proves 

 how easily the cuckoo and the smaller hawks can be mistaken 

 for each other, when the familiar cry is not available as a 

 means of distinction. A half-convinced believer in the old 

 fable will ask if the cuckoo is ever seen in foreign countries, 

 still clinging to the notion that it dwells all the year in Britain, 

 and merely goes through a peculiar metamorphosis in spring. 

 Devoid of the knowledge accumulated in books, which 

 guides and stimulates accurate observation, few countrymen 

 take the trouble to test their traditional beliefs about wild 

 life. And until the story of its life was pieced together by 

 careful observers, the metamorphosis of the adult cuckoo into 

 a sparrow-hawk would certainly seem no more incredible 

 than the actual process by which the new-born bird gets rid 

 of its legitimate rivals. 



